Fundamentals of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics - Hardcover

McWilliams, James C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052185637X ISBN 13: 9780521856379

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2006

Synopsis

This book was first published in 2006. Earth's atmosphere and oceans exhibit complex patterns of fluid motion over a vast range of space and time scales. These patterns combine to establish the climate in response to solar radiation that is inhomogeneously absorbed by the materials comprising air, water, and land. Spontaneous, energetic variability arises from instabilities in the planetary-scale circulations, appearing in many different forms such as waves, jets, vortices, boundary layers, and turbulence. Geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD) is the science of all these types of fluid motion. This textbook is a concise and accessible introduction to GFD for intermediate to advanced students of the physics, chemistry, and/or biology of Earth's fluid environment. The book was developed from the author's many years of teaching a first-year graduate course at the University of California, Los Angeles. Readers are expected to be familiar with physics and mathematics at the level of general dynamics (mechanics) and partial differential equations.

About this title

Book Description

This 2006 textbook is a concise and accessible introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics for intermediate to advanced students of the physics, chemistry, and/or biology of Earth's fluid environment. Developed from the author's first-year graduate course at UCLA, readers should be familiar with general mechanics and PDEs.

About the Author

James C. McWilliams is Louis B. Slichter Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California at Los Angeles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052185637X
• ISBN 13: 9780521856379
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 266