Air-Sea Interaction: Laws and Mechanisms provides a comprehensive account of how the atmosphere and the ocean interact to control the global climate, what physical laws govern this interaction, and what are its prominent mechanisms. Inrecent years, air-sea interaction has emerged as a subject in its own right, encompassing small- and large-scale processes in both air and sea. A novel feature of the book is the treatment of empirical laws of momentum, heat, and mass transfer, across the air-sea interface as well as across thermoclines, as laws of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, with focus on entropy production.
Thermodynamics also underlies the treatment of the overturning circulations of the atmosphere and the ocean. Highlights are thermodynamic cycles, the important function of “hot towers” in drying out of moist air, and oceanic heat transport from the tropics to polar regions. By developing its subject from basic physical (thermodynamic) principles, the book is broadly accessible to a wide audience.
The book is mainly directed toward graduate students and research scientists in meteorology, oceanography, and environmental engineering. The book also will be of value on entry level courses in meteorology and oceanography, and to the broader physics community interested in the treatment of transfer laws, and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and ocean.