65990 - Structure and Dynamics of Atmosphere and Ocean

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Docente: Nadia Pinardi
  • Credits: 7
  • SSD: GEO/12
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Ravenna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Environmental Sciences (cod. 8011)

Learning outcomes

The course is meant to give the basic knowledge of hydrodynamics and thermodynamics for the ocean and the atmosphere both at the mathematical-physical level and the phenomenological one. The course starts by illustrating the climatological structure of the ocean and the atmosphere, vertical and horizontal, winds and currents, and discussing the radiative balance of the Earth and it ends with fundamental equation for atmospheric and oceanic motion and their useful approximations.

Course contents

Part I
Introduction to the vertical structure of the atmosphere and oceans
Solar radiation, radiative balance and greenhouse effect
Climatological structure of the atmospheric and oceanic circulation
El Nino and La Nina phenomenon
The Monsoon and the teleconnections, including the North Atlantic Oscillation
Part II
The basic concepts of fluid dynamics applied to the Earth system
The advective derivative
The equation of motion and internal/external forces
Gravity, pressure and shear stresses
Transformation of the equations in the Earth rotating system
Coriolis acceleration
The continuity equations
The Navier-Stokes equations for the atmosphere and oceans
Passive and active tracers equations
Reynolds turbulence theory
Thermodynamics for ocean and atmosphere
Sea Water equation of state
Atmospheric equation of state
Scale analysis of the equations of motion
Boussinesq, incompressible and hydrostatic approximations
Geostrophic currents
Gravitational stability and stratification conditions

Readings/Bibliography

Oort and Peixoto, Physics of Climate
Marshall and Plumb, Atmopshere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics
Lecture notes

Teaching methods

6 CFU with frontal lectures and 1 CFU of classroom exercises at the blackboard.

Assessment methods

Two are the tests:
1) an essay on recent scientific issues related to the atmosphere and ocean dynamics;
2) a written test similar to the exercises and solutions given as part of the Lecture Notes
The final grade will be the arithmetic average of the results of the two tests

Teaching tools

several e-learning movies from the professional community

Links to further information

http://www.sincem.unibo.it/

Office hours

See the website of Nadia Pinardi