# Presentation: 424358

## Oceanography B 2008

- Anand Gnanadesikan
- NOAA/GFDL
- Princeton, NJ

## What is the basic topic?

- Physical oceanography- how does the ocean move and what are the basic forces?  (Includes implications from chemical oceanography) How does it interact with the atmosphere?
- Geological oceanography- what sorts of landforms and sediment distributions are found at the ocean bottom and along the ocean margins and what can we learn from them?

## Key questions: Geology

- How do currents and waves shape the coastal environment?
- How do coral reefs form and evolve?
- How can you tell where you are in the ocean from looking at the bottom?
- How does plate tectonics affect the structure of the ocean, and how has ocean geology affected the development of plate tectonics?

## Key questions: Physics

- What are the large-scale flows in the ocean?
- How are these reflected in chemical tracers?
- What are the physics behind those flows?
- What sets the properties of surface waves?
- What sets the amplitude and frequency of the tides?
- How does the ocean influence atmospheric circulations?

## Geological oceanography: Physical setting

- How is this made?
- What does it show?
- Can you identify key locations on this map?

- Map is available in Stewart’s online textbook.
- _[http://](http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/contents.html)__[oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/contents.html](http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/contents.html)_

## Geological oceanography

- http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/coastal_systems/outline.html

- What sorts of coastal landforms occur? What does this tell us about how they were formed?

## Sediment transport and beaches

- Illustration of accretion behind bars, and erosional hotspots where there are gaps.
- _[http://](http://www.csc.noaa.gov/beachnourishment/index.htm)__[www.csc.noaa.gov/beachnourishment/index.htm](http://www.csc.noaa.gov/beachnourishment/index.htm)_

## Physical oceanography: Properties of seawater

- What’s the difference between temperature and potential temperature?
- Why does it matter physically?
- How does the density depend on the temperature, salinity and pressure? Why?

## Surface temperatures

- Going from contour plots to line plots.
- Notice key features- how do we relate these to physics?

## Key concept- the Coriolis force

- Currents and wind stress, Surface Waves Proceses Program Site, Spring 1990

## Consider a ball being thrown across a turntable.

- Animation from P. Flament, Univ. Hawaii

## Result- Coriolis force balances other forces

- If wind blows on water, what will the transport be? Which direction? How big?

## Impact of Coriolis force

- Easterly (westward) winds in tropics
- Westerly winds in temperate, subpolar latitudes

## Chemical tracers and water masses

- _[http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.NOAA/.NODC/.WOA01/.Grid-1x1/.Annual/.an/](http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.NOAA/.NODC/.WOA01/.Grid-1x1/.Annual/.an/)_

- This picture made by going to

- And clicking on “dissolved oxygen”, clicking on the shaded plot at the top of the page,
- setting the depth to 2000, and setting the minimum value contoured to 0.

## Some final lessons for coaches

- No resources during the test doesn’t mean no resources. Build a binder!
- I’ve provided a long list of questions, a fair number of these questions will be asked on the Central Regional, Southern Regional, States and Nationals tests.
- Entrain younger students to help build the binder. Have these students compete to participate as alternates.
- You can prepare by having students go through a textbook and going over the questions with them. Accountability matters!

## Yet more final lessons for coaches

- Forget about “age-appropriateness” as regards *concepts*.
- Scientific notation
- Molarity
- Basic force balances
- Remember it’s not just about facts, but also process skills
- Reading graphs and charts
- Plotting and interpreting data
- Check the website! Or better yet, have your students do it!