Ocean Circulation (Open University Oceanography)

When I first got the text book, it had a different cover so I compared it with the professors and it was the same thing, so no worries.

What a wonderful text book! Clear, concise: lots of good diagrams, very interesting satelite photos, excellent chapter summaries and really thought provoking practice questions. Starts with the basics (atmospheric dynamics) and gets into a little depth (ocean currents, no pun intended). This book is the perfect introduction to oceanography. But it's a tiny bit dated, published in 1989; not clear if it's been updated in its 1995 printing. We've learned a lot more about the oceans since then, especially Japanese research on The Pipeline: two thousand years to complete a single circuit. Our planet, while probably not unique, is a truly marvellously complex system. This book shows how the anthropic principle is operating, and the unlikelihood of finding another planet that would suit us as well, which is a strong argument in favor of terra forming. This book is the second in a set of three on physical oceanography. Really worth the time and effort (and money) to read the set.

The Open University series of books on Oceanography is excellent. I would recommend them for anyone wanting a background on the subject, all the way from lay readers to 1st year grad students. As an oceanographer, I still use mine from time to time to refresh my memory! There are intermediate texts, such as Intro to Dynamical Oceanography, but you really can't beat the illustrations and simple explanatory problems of this text for someone's first introduction to the material.

This book provides a very accessible introduction to a topic that is often confusing to newcomers. It introduces the concepts and equations of oceanography in a step-by-step manner, with self-quizzes and problems to assist the reader in grasping the concepts. The book is good for people exploring an education in oceanography, or for people who are not oceanographers but need to understand the concepts for their own research. The book takes you from being a novice to understanding the different issues, terminology, and methods of data presentation typical of the field. A grasp of the material puts you in a position to dive into the oceanographic literature and pull out the information relevant to your own field of study.