Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Structure and résumé
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Heat, buoyancy, instability and turbulence
- 2 Neutral stability: internal waves
- 3 Instability and transition to turbulence in stratified shear flows
- 4 Convective instabilities
- 5 Instability and breaking of internal waves in mid-water
- 6 The measurement of turbulence and mixing
- 7 Fine-structure, transient-structures, and turbulence in the pycnocline
- 8 The benthic boundary layer
- 9 The upper ocean boundary layer
- 10 Shallow seas
- 11 Boundary layers on beaches and submarine slopes
- 12 Topographically related turbulence
- 13 Large-scale waves, eddies and dispersion
- 14 Epilogue
- Appendices
- References
- Index of laboratory experiments
- Subject index
- Plate section
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Structure and résumé
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Heat, buoyancy, instability and turbulence
- 2 Neutral stability: internal waves
- 3 Instability and transition to turbulence in stratified shear flows
- 4 Convective instabilities
- 5 Instability and breaking of internal waves in mid-water
- 6 The measurement of turbulence and mixing
- 7 Fine-structure, transient-structures, and turbulence in the pycnocline
- 8 The benthic boundary layer
- 9 The upper ocean boundary layer
- 10 Shallow seas
- 11 Boundary layers on beaches and submarine slopes
- 12 Topographically related turbulence
- 13 Large-scale waves, eddies and dispersion
- 14 Epilogue
- Appendices
- References
- Index of laboratory experiments
- Subject index
- Plate section
Summary
The idea of writing this book developed from the need for a text suitable in teaching a course on ocean physics to undergraduates and masters course students with some knowledge of physical processes, but not necessarily in fluids. The course demanded a text describing basic processes in fluids (many of which are beautifully illustrated in Van Dyke's (1982) book, a valuable introduction for students unfamiliar with fluid motion), and how these processes are manifest and why they are important in the ocean. In choosing as a title, The Turbulent Ocean, rather than Ocean Turbulence, I wish to convey an intention not to focus heavily on the complex and involved study of turbulence, but rather on the processes in the ocean leading to turbulence, its extraordinary and sometimes unexpected structure, and its multifaceted and profound effects in ocean dynamics.
This is therefore not intended to provide the sort of basic introduction to turbulence given, for example, in the excellent book by Tenneckes and Lumley (1972). Little is said of the general theory of turbulent motion or of the problems involved in its statistical sampling and in the treatment of data, particularly the problems encountered in producing and interpreting energy spectra even though these must be faced by those measuring turbulence in the ocean. Rather I describe and focus attention on the physical processes that lead to turbulence, and on its effects in the ocean.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Turbulent Ocean , pp. xi - xiiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005