Evolution and decay of eddies in the upper, deep and intermediate ocean. They vary the weather we experience on time-scales from a few hours to several weeks. Students will be exposed to the less well-known fact that the ocean is populated by very similar systems called eddies. They are the oceanic equivalent of atmospheric highs and lows, hurricanes and tornadoes. As in the atmosphere, intense storms can develop in the ocean to produce strong currents.
Fronts separating warm and cold water masses are a common occurrence.
The oceanic systems, however, have a much smaller horizontal scale than do their atmospheric counterparts and evolve on a much longer time-scale. It is only recently that we have been able to sample the richness in structure of the oceanic eddy field, and we have only just begun to assess the importance of these oceanic eddies in shaping the large-scale ocean circulations and their impact on climate and the biology of the oceans. For the atmosphere, the intimate links between weather and longer-term changes in the state of the atmosphere, or climate, are well established. We have yet to establish the link between ocean weather and the climate of the ocean. The use of biological tracers to examine eddying motions.