MBF610 - Physical Environment of Marine Organisms

Instuctor: Andrew Bakun & occasional guest lecturers

Time and place: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 - 12:00, Room S/A 120

Texts: Patterns in the Ocean - Ocean Processes and Marine Population Dynamics, by A. Bakun (book copies will be distributed at the initial lecture meeting); Introduction to Physical Oceanography, by Robert H. Stewart (pdf-file will be posted on the class web page). Material for additional reading assignments will be placed on reserve in the RSMAS library or posted on the class web page.

Content: The course seeks to provide an intuitive treatment of major processes and mechanisms linking the physical ocean-atmosphere system of the earth to the dynamics of marine ecosystems and the ecology of marine biological communities (accepted dogmas will sometimes be questioned and alternative possibilities and hypotheses explored). Besides attempting to expand the conceptual horizons of the participants, the course is designed to provide the basic necessary background in physical oceanography for effective pursuance of a professional career in marine biological and ecological science, including fisheries science. It may also be appropriate for students pursuing other marine scientific specialties (chemical, geological, etc.) as well as for physical oceanographers who may wish to be exposed to the course's particularly intuitive approach to various oceanographic processes and mechanisms as a supplement to the more mathematical approach that my be presented in physical oceanography departmental courses, as well as to acquire intuitions that may facilitate effective participation in collaborative interdisciplinary research activities. Reflecting the instructor's primary experience, many of the illustrative examples presented will be drawn from fisheries oceanography and fisheries ecology.

Grading: Course grades will be assigned based primarily on (a) two short mid-term exams, which will be incorporated within regularly scheduled lecture periods, and a final exam, and (b) on several practice problem sets that will be assigned. A student's participation in class discussions will also be taken into account.

Prerequisites: Although the course will not be primarily mathematical in nature, mathematical symbolism will be employed fairly frequently, and brief demonstration of several fundamental mathematical derivations will be presented. Thus a rudimentary understanding of basic concepts and symbolism of calculus will be required, as well as the equivalent of a basic course in mechanics (i.e., first semester of introductory college physics) yielding some familiarity with Newton's Laws, ability to comprehend and construct vector diagrams, etc.

Course outline (subject to adjustment as the course unfolds):

Jan 17 -   Introductions: discussion of aims and organization of the course, textbook distribution

Jan 19 -   Intuition adjustment I: “Different worlds have different rules”- the nature of marine ecosystems, size-dependent hydrodynamics, the “energy game”, the “oxygen game”, feedback loops, “predator pits”

Jan 24 -   Intuition adjustment II: “O'Dor's Law”, adaptive response mechanisms: school-scale processes, the school trap, school-mix feedback

Jan 25 -   Large-scale ocean transport processes: advection, diffusion, the general advection-diffusion equation

Jan 31 -   Fluid motion on a rotating earth: Coriolis, the Navier-Stokes equation geostropic flow, Ekman transport, cyclonic/anticyclonic rotation [Practice problem set #1 distributed]

Feb 2 -    The global ocean/atmosphere “heat engine”: Latent heat, heat capacity, Hadly cells, subtropical gyres, ITCZ

Feb 7 -    The stratified ocean: stratification/mixing/upwelling

[Practice problem set #1 due!]

Feb 9 -    Discussion of Practice problem set #1, etc. Lecture: spring blooms, large-scale ocean primary productivity

Feb 14 -  Air-Sea Interaction, environmental index time series

Feb 16 -  The global thermohaline ocean circulation / estuarine circulations

Feb 21 -  QUIZ #1, Brief lecture: river plumes

Feb 23 -  Discussion: Quiz #1, Brief lecture: ocean turbulence, Langmuir circulations

[Practice problem set #2 distributed]

Feb 28 -The mesoscale: surface fronts, curl/vorticity, lateral friction, wind-stress curl

Mar 2 -    Mesoscale eddies: the vorticity equation, cyclonic vs anticyclonic, forced vs free eddies [Practice problem set #2 due!]

Mar 7 -    Discussion of practice problem set #2, Lecture: Latitudinal effects versus scale effects in determining primary flow dynamics, inertial motion

Mar 9 -    “Ocean triads” and “connectivity”: Potential retention mechanisms, trapped eddies, recruitment mechanisms

Mar 21 -  Guest Lecturer, Dr. Vera N. Agostini: “Ocean triads” in the Mediterranean Sea

Mar 23 -  Guest Lecturer, Dr. Vera N. Agostini: “A moving target” - defining habitat of a pelagic population (example: North Pacific hake)

[Practice problem set #3 distributed]

Mar 28 -  Ocean waves: internal waves, enrichment of reef systems by breaking internal waves, rip currents, edge waves, beach processes

Mar 30 -  The Equatorial Current complex: north-south asymmetry, the Cromwell Current, North Pacific albacore example, tuna spawning habitats  [Practice problem set #3 due!]

Apr 4 -     Discussion of practice problem set #2 Lecture: Geophysical waves:Rossby waves, Kelvin waves

Apr 6 -     QUIZ #2, Lecture: Ocean tides

Apr 11 -   ENSO: El Niño, the Walker circulation, the Southern Oscillation, the SOI, atmospheric teleconnections

Apr 13 -   Marine ecosystem regime shifts

Apr 18 -   Interdecadal climate variability, basin-scale synchronies, the 1970s regime shift in the Pacific

Apr 20 -   Large-scale climatic indices, pitfalls of empirical analysis

Apr 25 -   “Wasp-waist ecosystems”, anchovies vs sardines, “breakout” thresholds

Apr 27 -   Greenhouse-mediated climate change (example: the possibility of abrupt degradation of intense marine upwelling systems)