Marine Modelling 2009 (OCEA 5380/4380)

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Instructor:
Katja Fennel (katja.fennel@dal.ca)
Office: LSC Oceanography #2634
Phone: 494 4526
Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 15:30 – 16:30 or by appointment

Course Times:

Lectures: Mondays and Wednesdays, 14:35 – 15:25
Labs: Fridays, 13:35 – 14:25

Location:

Oceanography, Gordon Riley Room (#3652) for lectures
Computer Sciences, PC lab 1 for labs

Course Objectives: This course is designed to introduce a variety of modeling techniques useful in oceanography and the natural sciences in general. The main objective is to provide an overview of a range of techniques, rather than exhaustive and in depth discussion of any particular technique. The approach is to introduce techniques, discuss their assumptions and limitations, and apply them to simple problems in oceanography and earth sciences. This is accomplished by a combination of lectures and labs. At the end of this course, students should have an understanding of various modeling approaches and their applicability; as a result, they will be better placed to both carry out their own research, and to critically evaluate the literature. Opportunities exist to tailor course material to meet specific needs of individual students.

Approach: A series of more or less independent modules will be presented, each of which will include an introduction to a particular technique, some examples, and an assignment in which the student will have the opportunity to apply the techniques to simple problems.

Course Assessment: Grades for the course will be assigned based on performance on 4 assignments (30%), on regular pop quizzes (30%), and on a term project, which will be presented, orally and in written form (40%). The project will include a critical analysis of two modeling techniques used in the literature to approach a single problem.

Prerequisites: Physical Oceanography (OCEA 4120), Math to PDE’s (e.g. MATH 4220) or Instructor’s consent.

Logistics: Access to MATLAB on your own computer will be crucial. The oceanography department is prepared to provide you with a temporary license if you do not have access already (it is to be used for teaching purposes only and will have to be removed after the term).

Recommended Readings:

Batschelet E (1979) Introduction to mathematics for life scientists, 3rd edn. Springer
Bevington PR and Robertson DK (2003) Data reduction and error analysis, 3rd edn. McGraw Hill
Davis JC (2002) Statistics and data analysis in geology, 3rd edn. John Wiley & Sons
Davis TA and Sigmon K (2005) MATLAB primer, Chapman & Hall/CRC
Hahn BD and Valentine DT (2007) Essential MATLAB for engineers and scientists, Butterworth-Heinemann (Elsevier)
Harte J (2001) Consider a spherical cow: More adventures in environmental problem solving, University Science Books, Sausalito, California
Harte J (1988) Consider a spherical cow: A course in environmental problem solving, University Science Books, Sausalito, California
Press WH, Teukolsky SA, Vetterling WT, Flannery BP (2002) Numerical recipes, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press
Sarmiento JL and Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics, Princeton University Press
Schey HM (1973) Div, grad, curl and all that: An informal text on calculus, W. W. Norton & Company

Schedule:

Date	Lecture/Lab #	Topic	Comments
13-Mar	cancelled	C-DOGS
16-Mar	Lec 19	PCA/EOFs continued
18-Mar	Lec 20	Time Series: Autocovariance, Autocorelation, Crosscorrelation
20-Mar	Lab 9		3rd assignment due
23-Mar	Lec 21	Time Series: Fourier Series, Fourier Transform
25-Mar	Lec 22	Numerical Techniques I
27-Mar	Lab 10
30-Mar	Lec 23	Numerical Techniques II
1-Apr	Lec 24	Inverse Modelling	4th assignment
3-Apr	Lab 11
6-Apr	Lec 25	Student presentations
8-Apr	Lec 26	Student presentations	4th assignment due; project reports due

Lecture Materials:

Jan 5 & 7, 2009	slides ; version 2	handouts ; version 2
Jan 9, 2009	slides	handouts
Jan 12, 2009	slides	handouts
Jan 14, 2009	slides	handouts
Jan 16, 2009	slides	handouts ; scripts and data: interestexample.m lobo_data_subset.txt load_and_plot_lobosubset.m
Jan 21, 2009	slides ; version 2	handouts ; version 2
Jan 23, 2009	slides	handouts ; scripts: fact_function.m quad.m roundoff_error.m
Jan 26, 2009	slides	handouts
Jan 28 & Feb 2	slides	handouts
Jan 30, 2009	slides	handouts ; script: chinook_model.m
Feb 9 & 11, 2009	slides (from Marlon Lewis)
Feb 13, 2009	slides	handouts
Feb 18, 2009	slides	handouts scripts: lsqfitma.m and lsqcubic.m
Feb 20, 2009	slides	handouts data: 4900093.mat scripts: linfit.m , plot_argo_oxygen.m and linfit_argo_oxygen.m
March 2, 2009	slides	handouts
March 4, 2009	slides	handouts
March 6, 2009	slides	handouts data: chl_spring08.mat and defined_Gaussian_peak_on_const_bg.mat scripts: defined_Gaussian_peak.m and non_lin_phyto_fit.m functions: nlleasqr.m and modfunc1.m and dfdp.m
March 9, 2009	slides	handouts
March 11, 2009	slides	handouts Homework: lobo_0_to_2240.mat lin_trend_w_electr_noise.mat Gaussian_w_const_bg.mat trilobite_a.dat trilobite_b.dat
March 18, 2009	slides	handouts
March 20, 2009	slides	handouts data: coastline_GSL_SS_labrador.dat SeaWiFS_chl_NewEngland.mat lobo_data_no_headder.ascii WNA_coast.mat scripts: plotting_coastline.m plotnewengland.m EOF_chl_NewEngland.m lobo_autocorr_salt.m
March 25, 2009	slides	handouts script: fftgui.m
March 27, 2009	slides	handouts data: Giovanni_chl_timeseries.dat Giovanni_SST_timeseries.dat script: crosscorrelation_Giovanni_SST_chl.m
March 30, 2009	slides	handouts
April 1, 2009	slides	handouts data for homework: SOI.dat
April 3, 2009	slides	handouts scripts: fft_example.m and NP_bottle.m
April 6, 2009	slides	handouts