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Chemical or Physical Oceanography

The oceans cover approximately 71% of the earth's surface, and play a critical role in global climate through storage and transport of heat and carbon dioxide.  Interactions between the ocean and atmosphere are responsible for global phenomena such as El Niño. Understanding ocean circulation and chemistry is crucial for understanding climate variability and prediction.

ATOC faculty, graduate students, and research staff work together on a wide range of oceanographic research topics: large-scale dynamics; small-scale turbulence, air-sea interaction; carbon cycling and biogeochemistry; remote sensing of the ocean; and ocean-ice interactions.

ATOC offers a Master's and Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.  Students wishing to specialize in the Oceanography (O) track will enroll in courses that satisfy the core curriculum requirements.  The CU-Boulder campus also offers a Graduate Level Certificate in Oceanography.  Current ATOC oceanography courses include:

  • ATOC 3070: Introduction to Oceanography
  • ATOC 4215/5215: Descriptive Physical Oceanography
  • ATOC 5051: Introduction to Physical Oceanography
  • ATOC 5061: Dynamics of Oceans
  • ATOC 5300: The Global Carbon Cycle
  • ATOC 6020: Oceanography Seminar
  • ATOC 7500: Special Topics

Faculty in ATOC with Oceanographic Research and Teaching Interests:

Weiqing Han, Associate Professor, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

  • The ocean's role in climate
  • Indian Ocean's role in iniating Madden-Julian Oscillation
  • Dynamics of the tropical ocean circulation
  • Coupled ocean-atmopsheric dynamics
  • Process studies
  • Numerical modeling
  • Air-sea interaction
  • Personal homepage

John E. Hart, Professor Emeritus, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Nicole Lovenduski, Assistant Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

  • Marine carbon cycle
  • Ocean climate variability and change
  • Ocean modeling
  • Personal homepage

Jeffrey Weiss, Associate Chair, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

Other CU Faculty with Oceanographic Research and Teaching Interests:

Mark J. Ablowitz, Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics

  • Water Waves
  • Solitons

David M. Anderson, Fellow and Adjoint Associate Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences

  • Paleoceanography
  • Marine geology
  • Quantitative paleoenvironmental reconstruction
  • Personal page

John T. Andrews, Fellow and Professor Emeritus, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences, ATOC affiliate faculty.

  • Glacial and marine sedimentology and chronologies
  • high-resolution marine studies
  • Personal page

George Born, Director and Professor, CCAR and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

  • Satellite oceanography

Mel Cundiff, Associate Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Olivier Desjardins, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

  • Large-eddy simulation and direct numerical simulation of turbulent liquid atomization
  • Advanced numerical methods for complex reacting turbulent flows
  • Advanced numerical methods for multiphase flows
  • Lagrangian and Eulerian spray modeling
  • Modeling of turbulent multiphase combustion
  • Personal homepage

William Emery, Professor, CCAR and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, ATOC affiliate faculty.

  • Remote Sensing of the earth, its atmospheres and oceans
  • Development of receiving and processing systems for data from earth orbiting satellites
  • Data analysis in physical oceanography
  • Personal page

Albin J. Gasiewski, Director and Professor, CET and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

  • Passive and active remote sensing
  • Radiative transfer theory and applications
  • Electronics and airborne sensors
  • Meteorology and oceanography
  • Personal homepage

Peter Hamlington, Assistant Research Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

  • Turbulence

Anne Jennings, Fellow and Assistant Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences

Keith Julien, Professor and Graduate Studies Chair, Department of Applied Mathematics

  • Dynamics and instability processes in geophysical and astrophysical fluid dynamics
  • Personal homepage

Lakshmi Kantha, Professor, CCAR and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, ATOC affiliate faculty.

  • Numerical models of the oceans and related physical processes
  • Coupled regional models of ice-ocean-atmosphere interactions
  • Turbulence and mixing in the oceans and the atmosphere
  • Wave motions, tides, altimetry

Robert Leben, Associate Research Professor, CCAR and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

  • Satellite altimetry and its application to ocean circulation monitoring
  • Computational fluid dynamics and digital signal processing techniques and their application to problems in geophysical fluid dynamics and aerodynamics
  • Personal homepage

Scott J. Lehman, Fellow and Research Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences

  • Paleoclimatology
  • Paleoceanography
  • Radiocarbon research
  • Personal page

Tom Marchitto, Fellow and Assistant Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences

  • Paleoceanography
  • Past ocean chemistry
  • Quaternary paleoclimate
  • Personal page

James Maslanik, Research Professor, CCAR, ATOC affiliate faculty.

  • Polar climatology
  • Remote sensing
  • Regional modeling of sea ice and land surface processes

Ralph Milliff, Research Scientist and Associate Professor Adjunct, CORA and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, ATOC adjunct faculty.

Steve Nerem, Fellow and Associate Professor, CIRES, CCAR, and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences

  • Remote sensing: altimetry, geodesy
  • Sea level change
  • Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)
  • Personal page

Harvey Segur, Professor, Department of Applied Mathematics

Mark Serreze, Fellow and Associate Research Professor, CIRES and Department of Geography

  • Arctic climate variability and change
  • Arctic atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions
  • Personal homepage

James Syvitski, Fellow, Former Director, and Professor, INSTAAR and Department of Geological Sciences, ATOC affiliate faculty

  • Discharge dynamics of global rivers and the sediment load they carry
  • Morphology and deposits of continental margins
  • Impact of high-energy weather events on our coastline
  • Impact of ice sheets on high-latitude shelves and slopes
  • Personal homepage

Oleg V. Vasilyev, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Wavelet Methods for Modeling and Simulation of Complex Multi-Scale Phenomena
  • Theoretical and Numerical Studies in Turbulence
  • Large Eddy Simulations of Turbulent Flows
  • Turbulence Modeling
  • Fluid Dynamics of Geological Processes
  • Personal homepage

Other Oceanographic Research in Boulder:

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

NOAA-ESRL, CIRES, and CIRES Climate Diagnostics Center

 

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