This book provides an introduction to the complex system functions, variability and human interference in ecosystem between the continent and the ocean. It focuses on circulation, transport and mixing of estuarine and coastal water masses, which is ultimately related to an understanding of the hydrographic and hydrodynamic characteristics (salinity, temperature, density and circulation), mixing processes (advection and diffusion), transport timescales such as the residence time and the exposure time. In the area of physical oceanography, experiments using these water bodies as a natural laboratory and interpreting their circulation and mixing processes using theoretical and semi-theoretical knowledge are of fundamental importance. Small-scale physical models may also be used together with analytical and numerical models. The book highlights the fact that research and theory are interactive, and the results provide the fundamentals for the development of the estuarine research.

For decades, previous editions of John Knauss’s seminal work have struck a balance between purely descriptive texts and mathematically rigorous ones, giving a wide range of marine scientists access to the fundamental principles of physical oceanography. Newell Garfield continues this tradition, delivering valuable updates that highlight the book’s resourceful presentation and concise effectiveness. The authors include historical and current research, along with a 12-page color insert, to illuminate their perspective that the world ocean is tumultuous and continually helps to shape global environmental processes. The Third Edition builds a solid foundation that readers will find straightforward and lucid. It presents valuable insight into our understanding of the world ocean by: • Encompassing essential oceanic processes such as the transfer of heat across the ocean surface, the distribution of temperature and salinity, and the effect of the earth’s rotation on the ocean. • Providing sensible and well-defined explanations of the roles played by a stratified ocean, global balances, and equations of motion. • Discussing cogent topics such as major currents, tides, waves, coastal oceans, semienclosed seas, and sound and optics.

Elements of Physical Oceanography provides a broad look at most of the topics of concern to Physical Oceanography without treating any part of the subject matter completely or exhaustively. This book originated in a set of lecture notes for an introductory course in Physical Oceanography given by the author in the Department of Oceanography and Meteorology at Texas A&M University. The book is organized into three parts. Part I on descriptive oceanography covers topics such as nature of oceanographic data, the chemical nature of the ocean, the temperature of the ocean, and temperature-salinity relationships. Part II on oceanic movements discusses accelerations arising from mass distribution and the Earth’s rotation, geostrophic and wind driven currents, waves, and tides. Part III covers various topics such as sound propagation, the heat budget of the ocean, and estuaries. This book aims to provide the non-physical oceanographer with insight into the physical nature of the environment influencing his chosen studies. The physical oceanographer will be somewhat less than satisfied with the treatment and will wish to read the publications referred to and to follow the suggestions for additional reading.

The heavily-revised Practical Handbook of Marine Science, Fourth Edition continues its tradition as a state-of-the-art reference that updates the field of marine science to meet the interdisciplinary research needs of physical oceanographers, marine biologists, marine chemists, and marine geologists. This edition adds an entirely new section devoted to Climate Change and Climate Change Effects. It also adds new sections on Estuaries, Beaches, Barrier Islands, Shellfish, Macroalgae, Food Chains, Food Webs, Trophic Dynamics, System Productivity, Physical-Chemical-Biological Alteration, and Coastal Resource Management. The Handbook assembles an extensive international collection of marine science data throughout, with approximately 1,000 tables and illustrations. It provides comprehensive coverage of anthropogenic impacts in estuarine and marine ecosystems from local, regional, and global perspectives. Maintaining its user-friendly, multi-sectional format, this comprehensive resource will also be of value to undergraduate and graduate students, research scientists, administrators, and other professionals who deal with the management of marine resources. Now published in full color, the new edition offers extensive illustrative and tabular reference material covering all the major disciplines related to the sea.

"This book is intended as a graduate-level textbook and professional reference on the physical oceanography of the continental shelf and slope. Defined as water deeper than about three meters and shallower than a kilometer, this region of the ocean is important for a variety of scientific and practical reasons, from its high biological productivity and role in distributing outflows from the continents to its heavy usage in transportation and recreation. In recent years, research on the coastal ocean has expanded as the study of both short- and long-term anthropogenic change has become increasingly urgent. Yet there is no comprehensive treatment of the dynamics of this critical region. The book covers a range of topics involving currents and water properties, including turbulent boundary layers, wind driving, tides, buoyancy currents, waves, instabilities, and connections with the open, deep ocean. Brink's approach-informed by over a decade teaching the corresponding course in Woods Hole/MIT's joint program-centers on the dynamics of particular processes and combinations of processes, but also includes copious observational examples. Intended to be accessible to graduate students in a range of oceanographic specialties, the book assumes 2-3 years of university-level math and at least an introductory course in quantitative physical oceanography"--

'Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction' 5th edition provides an introduction to descriptive (synoptic) physical oceanography for science undergraduates and early graduate students. There has been an updating of topics such as the heat budget, instruments (particularly the use of satellites), a complete revision of the material on equatorial oceanography, sea-ice physics and distribution and El Nino and information has been added on thermohaline circulation, mixing nad coral reef oceanography.