Atmosphere - Ocean Dynamics

1. Dynamics: Those things you can learn about a fluid from the equations of motion.

2. Key Elements of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: This list is represents the minimal set of dynamics tools for application in the atmospheric, oceanic, and related sciences.

3. Atmospheric and Oceanic Dynamics
• Know the equations of motion, the relevant simplified forms of them, and the conditions under which each simplifying approximation is valid.
• Know how to solve differential equations, especially wave equations and those for exponential growth and decay.
• Know the dispersion relations for all the waves of interest. Know how to derive them and the methods for computing phase speed and group velocity from them.
• Know the implications of drag and surface friction.
• Stability: Know what it means and how to calculate it. This concept is important in fluid dynamics, too.
4. Fluid Dynamics
• Turbulence: it’s nature, origins, energetics, decay, and fate.
• Laminar vs. turbulent flow: What are the causes and consequences of this transition?
• Buckingham Pi Theorem: Know how to use it to develop similarity theories.
• Non-dimensional numbers: Know the relevant non-dimensional numbers and how they arise from similarity theory.
• Reynolds averaging: Know how to Reynolds average the equations of motion and what the Reynolds postulates tell you about the relevance of the resulting equations.

This page was last updated by George Young on November 22, 2000