Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics

Geoffrey K. Vallis is a senior scientist and professor in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. He is also an associate faculty member at the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and a former professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Until recently he was editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. His research interests include the general circulation of the ocean and atmosphere, turbulence theory, and climate dynamics. He has taught a wide range of topics at Princeton and the University of California, and he has published extensively in both the oceanographic and meteorological literature.

Part I. Fundamentals of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics: 1. Equations of motion; 2. Effects of rotation and stratification; 3. Shallow water systems and isentropic coordinates; 4. Vorticity and potential vorticity; 5. Simplified equations for ocean and atmosphere; Part II. Instabilities, Waves and Turbulence: 6. Barotropic and baroclinic instability; 7. Wave-mean flow interaction; 8. Turbulence: basic theory; 9. Geostrophic turbulence and baroclinic eddies; 10. Turbulent diffusion and eddy transport; Part III. Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation: 11. The overturning circulation: Hadley and Ferrel cells; 12. Mid-latitude atmospheric circulation; 13. Zonal asymmetries, planetary waves and stratosphere; Part IV. Large-Scale Circulation: 14. Wind-driven gyres; 15. The buoyancy driven circulation; 16. Wind and buoyancy driven circulation; Appendix: miscellaneous relationships in a layered model; Index.