Rotating Hydraulics: Nonlinear Topographic Effects in the Ocean and Atmosphere

Description

Larry Pratt received his Ph. D. in physical oceanography in the Woods Hole/MIT Joint Program in 1982. He then served as a research associate and assistant research professor at the University of Rhode Island before joining the scientific staff at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he is now a senior scientist. He is editor of The Physical Oceanography of Sea Straits and has authored or co-authored numerous articles on hydraulic effects in the ocean. J. A. (Jack) Whitehead received his Ph. D. in engineering and applied science from Yale University in 1968. After postdoctoral work and serving as assistant research geophysicist at the Institute of Geophysical and Planetary Physics at UCLA, he joined the scientific staff at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he is now a Senior Scientist. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles on hydraulic effects in the ocean. Hydraulic effects can occur when high-speed ocean currents and atmospheric winds encounter strong topographic features. This book contains a deep and extensive discussion of geophysical flows that are broad enough to be influenced by Earth’s rotation and strong enough to experience classical hydraulic effects such as critical control and hydraulic jumps. Examples include deep overflows and coastal currents in the ocean and winds in the coastal marine layer. The material is appropriate for students at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level who have some elementary knowledge of fluid mechanics. Reviews of geophysical observations and of the hydraulics of flow with no background rotation are followed by chapters on models of currents in rotating channels, shock waves and time dependence, coastal flow, two-layer stratification, and jets. Although the primary focus is on the theory, a number of case studies, including the Faroe Bank overflow and the California coastal marine layer winds, are presented along with numerous laboratory experiments. Exercises are presented at the end of most sections. The presentation should allow the reader to develop a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of the hydraulics of rotating flows.