U.S. Dept. of Commerce / NOAA /
OAR / PMEL
From Theoretical Dynamics to Operational Oceanography Part I: Approaches
Richard E Hester Jr, LTJG/NOAA, Physical Scientist, FOCI
Abstract
The presentation will try to answer the following question: "What's
dynamical systems theory and why should an oceanographer care (or
meteorologist or biologist)?" In the popular press this field of
study is often referred to as "chaos theory". In the abstract world of
mathematicians, it's called "topology". When applied to real world
problems we call it "dynamical systems theory", or dynamics for short.
It has been under development for more than a hundred years, but has
been isolated from the applied sciences until the recent widespread
availability of significant computational resources.
The presentation will briefly set the historical context and introduce
the two key concepts of phase portrait and bifurcation diagram. The
main body of the talk introduces four applications to oceanography:
measuring and predicting transport and mixing, ensemble forecasts and
targeted observations, nonlinear time series analysis, and bifurcation
studies of ocean models. The applications are considered for their
potential value to operational oceanography.
Part II is planned for the fall FOCI seminar series, and will report
on a demonstration of one of the above approaches.
