Tropical Cyclone 10s (Dina), as seen from the Sea-viewing Wide-Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) onboard the OrbView-2 satellite. Dina is located to the southeast of Madagascar. (Image courtesy of NASA's Visible Earth.)
Instructor(s)
Prof. R. Alan Plumb
MIT Course Number
12.333
As Taught In
Spring 2004
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Course Description
In this course, we will look at many important aspects of the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, from length scales of meters to thousands of km and time scales ranging from seconds to years. We will assume familiarity with concepts covered in course 12.003 (Physics of the Fluid Earth). In the early stages of the present course, we will make somewhat greater use of math than did 12.003, but the math we will use is no more than that encountered in elementary electromagnetic field theory, for example. The focus of the course is on the physics of the phenomena which we will discuss.