The Atmosphere and Ocean A Physical Introduction

About this book

The Atmosphere and Ocean is a fully revised and updated student friendly physical introduction to the atmosphere and ocean. Now in its third edition, the book continues to provide students with an accessible description of the atmosphere and ocean with emphasis on their physical properties and inter-dependence. Clearly structured throughout, the book demonstrates that the atmosphere and ocean are both subject to the influence of the earth's rotation and therefore they have a common dynamical basis.

The author clearly demonstrates the fundamental differences between the two environments and provides the reader with a much better understanding of the atmosphere and the ocean and an appreciation of their closest interactive relationship. There have been many developments in the field over the past ten years and this latest edition of a highly successful textbook brings together new material on the ocean-atmosphere system and climate, the observed circulation of the atmosphere and ocean and radiation in the atmosphere and ocean.

Contents

Series Foreword ix
Preface to the Third Edition xi

1 The Earth within the Solar System 1
2 Composition and Physical Properties of the Ocean and Atmosphere 25
3 Radiation, Temperature and Stability 53
4 Water in the Atmosphere 83
5 Global Budgets of Heat, Water and Salt 111
6 Observations of Winds and Currents 147
7 The Influence of the Earth's Rotation on Fluid Motion 181
8 Waves and Tides 219
9 Energy Transfer in the Ocean-Atmosphere System 253
10 Mathematical Modelling of the Ocean and Atmosphere 283
11 Atmosphere-Ocean Interaction 315
12 Climate Change 337

Problems 353
Glossary 369
General Reading 377
Further Reading and References 379
Figure Sources 385

Appendices
A Standard International (SI) Units 391
B SI Unit Prefixes 391

Index 393

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