The course deals with central concepts and dynamical phenomena in physical oceanography: wind-driven and the thermohaline ocean circulation, estuarine circulation, wave phenomena, small scale processes are explained with a help of theory and observations.
The course begins with presenting central concepts in physical oceanography: sea water properties (temperature, salinity, density) and how they are related through the Equation of State (EOS), water masses and the T-S diagrams used to study them, ocean stratification. The course continues with explaining the fundamental phenomena of ocean circulation with help of the theory: geostrophic currents, the wind-driven and the thermohaline ocean circulation, estuarine circulation (with focus on the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean), oceanic wave phenomena and small-scale processes.
The course includes a research cruise with R/V ELECTRA (in collaboration with the Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre) where students learn basic methods for observational oceanography.
The course is a part of the Master's programme in Meteorology, Oceanography and Climate, but may also be taken as an individual course.
Prerequisites
Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, 30 ECTS or the equivalent. Alternativly Meteorology I 15 ECTS and Meteorology II 7,5 ECTS. Swedish upper secondary school course English B/English 6 or equivalent. Information about entry requirements on universityadmissions.se
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