Introduction To

Physical Oceanography

Robert H. Stewart
Department of Oceanography
Texas A & M University

Copyright 2002
Fall 2002 Edition
ii
Contents

Preface vii

1 A Voyage of Discovery 1
1.1 Physics of the ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 The Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 The Historical Setting 7

2.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Eras of Oceanographic Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 Milestones in the Understanding of the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 Evolution of some Theoretical Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5 The Role of Observations in Oceanography . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.6 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3 The Physical Setting 21

3.1 Oceans and Seas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 Dimensions of the Oceans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 Sea-Floor Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Measuring the Depth of the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.5 Sea Floor Charts and Data Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.6 Sound in the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.7 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4 Atmospheric Influences 39
4.1 The Earth in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Atmospheric Wind Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.3 The Planetary Boundary Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.4 Measurement of Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.5 Wind Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.6 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

iii
iv CONTENTS

5 The Oceanic Heat Budget 51

5.1 The Oceanic Heat Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.2 Heat-Budget Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.3 Direct Calculation of Fluxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.4 Indirect Calculation of Fluxes: Bulk Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.5 Global Data Sets for Fluxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.6 Geographic Distribution of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.7 Meridional Heat Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.8 Meridional Fresh Water Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.9 Variations in Solar Constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.10 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

6 Temperature, Salinity, and Density 75

6.1 Definition of Salinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
6.2 Definition of Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.3 Geographical Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.4 The Oceanic Mixed Layer and Thermocline . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.5 Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.6 Measurement of Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.7 Measurement of Conductivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.8 Measurement of Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.9 Temperature and Salinity With Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.10 Light in the Ocean and Absorption of Light . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.11 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

7 The Equations of Motion 105

7.1 Dominant Forces for Ocean Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.2 Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.3 Types of Flow in the ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.4 Conservation of Mass and Salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
7.5 The Total Derivative (D/Dt) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.6 Momentum Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7.7 Conservation of Mass: The Continuity Equation . . . . . . . . . 113
7.8 Solutions to the Equations of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.9 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

8 Equations of Motion With Viscosity 117

8.1 The Influence of Viscosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
8.2 Turbulence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8.3 Calculation of Reynolds Stress: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.4 Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8.5 Mixing in the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.6 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
CONTENTS v

9 Response of the Upper Ocean to Winds 135

9.1 Inertial Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
9.2 Ekman Layer at the Sea Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
9.3 Ekman Mass Transports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
9.4 Application of Ekman Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
9.5 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

10 Geostrophic Currents 153

10.1 Hydrostatic Equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
10.2 Geostrophic Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
10.3 Surface Geostrophic Currents From Altimetry . . . . . . . . . . . 157
10.4 Geostrophic Currents From Hydrography . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
10.5 An Example Using Hydrographic Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
10.6 Comments on Geostrophic Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
10.7 Currents From Hydrographic Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
10.8 Lagrangean Measurements of Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
10.9 Eulerian Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
10.10Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

11 Wind Driven Ocean Circulation 185

11.1 Sverdrup’s Theory of the Oceanic Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . 185
11.2 Western Boundary Currents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
11.3 Munk’s Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
11.4 Observed Circulation in the Atlantic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
11.5 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

12 Vorticity in the Ocean 201

12.1 Definitions of Vorticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.2 Conservation of Vorticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
12.3 Vorticity and Ekman Pumping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
12.4 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

13 Deep Circulation in the Ocean 213

13.1 Importance of the Thermohaline Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
13.2 Theory for the Thermohaline Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
13.3 Observations of the Deep Circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
13.4 Antarctic Circumpolar Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
13.5 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

14 Equatorial Processes 235

14.1 Equatorial Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
14.2 El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
14.3 El Niño Teleconnections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
14.4 Observing El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
14.5 Forecasting El Niño . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
14.6 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
vi CONTENTS

15 Numerical Models 255

15.1 Introduction–Some Words of Caution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
15.2 Numerical Models in Oceanography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
15.3 Simulation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
15.4 Primitive-Equation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
15.5 Coastal Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
15.6 Assimilation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
15.7 Coupled Ocean and Atmosphere Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
15.8 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

16 Ocean Waves 273

16.1 Linear Theory of Ocean Surface Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
16.2 Nonlinear waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
16.3 Waves and the Concept of a Wave Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . 279
16.4 Ocean-Wave Spectra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
16.5 Wave Forecasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
16.6 Measurement of Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
16.7 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

17 Coastal Processes and Tides 295

17.1 Shoaling Waves and Coastal Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
17.2 Tsunamis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
17.3 Storm Surges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
17.4 Theory of Ocean Tides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
17.5 Tidal Prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
17.6 Important Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

References 317
Preface

This book is written for upper-division undergraduates and new graduate stu-
dents in meteorology, ocean engineering, and oceanography. Because these stu-
dents have a diverse background, I have emphasized ideas and concepts with a
minimum of mathematical material.

Acknowledgements
I have taught from the book for several years, and I thank the many students
who have pointed out poorly written sections, conflicting notation, and other
errors. I also thank Professor Fred Schlemmer at Texas A&M Galveston who,
after using the book for his classes, has provided extensive comments about the
material.
Of course, I accept responsibility for all mistakes in the book. Please send
me your comments and suggestions for improvement.
Figures in the book came from many sources. I particularly wish to thank
Link Ji for many global maps, and colleagues at the University of Texas Center
for Space Research. Don Johnson redrew many figures and turned sketches into
figures. Trey Morris tagged the words used in the index.
I especially thank nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Topex/Poseidon
Project for their support of the book through contract 960887 and 1205046.
Cover photograph of an island in the Maldives was taken by Jagdish Agara
(copyright Corbis). Cover design is by Don Johnson.
The book was produced in LaTeX 2e using Textures on a Macintosh com-
puter. Figures were drawn in Adobe Illustrator.

vii
viii PREFACE