Fluids, Oceans and Climate (MATH3261)

MATH3261 is a Mathematics Level III course.

Units of credit: 6

Prerequisites: 12 units of credit in Level 2 Math courses including (MATH2011 or MATH2111) or MATH2121 or MATH2221), or (both MATH2019 (DN) and MATH2089), or (both MATH2069 (DN) and MATH2099).

Exclusion: MATH5285 (jointly taught)

Cycle of offering: Term 3 2023

Graduate attributes: The course will enhance your research, inquiry and analytical thinking abilities.

More information: The course outline will be made available in the Course Offerings table. Course outlines are made available prior to the commencement of term. The outline will provide information about course objectives, assessment, course materials and the syllabus.

Important additional information as of 2023

UNSW Plagiarism Policy

The University requires all students to be aware of its policy on plagiarism.

For courses convened by the School of Mathematics and Statistics no assistance using generative AI software is allowed unless specifically referred to in the individual assessment tasks.

If its use is detected in the no assistance case, it will be regarded as serious academic misconduct and subject to the standard penalties, which may include 00FL, suspension and exclusion.

The Online Handbook entry contains up-to-date timetabling information.

If you are currently enrolled in MATH3261, you can log into UNSW Moodle for this course.

The mathematical modelling and theory of problems arising in the flow of fluids, the oceans and the global climate. Cartesian tensors, kinematics, mass conservation, vorticity, Navier-Stokes equation. Topics from inviscid and viscous fluid flow, gas dynamics, sound waves, water waves. The dynamics underlying the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans are detailed using key concepts such as geostrophy, the deformation radius and the conservation of potential vorticity. The role of Rossby waves, shelf waves, turbulent boundary layers and stratification is discussed. The atmosphere-ocean system as a global heat engine for climate variablity is examined using models for buoyant forcing, quasi-geostrophy and baroclinic instability.

In this course, students learn about the mathematical modelling and theory of problems arising in the flow of fluids, oceans and global climate. We will cover Cartesian tensors, kinematics, mass conservation, vorticity, Navier-Stokes equations, topics from inviscid and viscous fluid flow, gas dynamics, sound waves and water waves. The dynamics underlying the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans are detailed using key concepts such as geostrophy, the deformation radius and the conservation of potential vorticity. The role of Rossby waves, shelf waves, turbulent boundary layers and stratification is discussed. The atmosphere-ocean system as a global heat engine for climate variability is examined using models for buoyant forcing, quasi-geostrophy and baroclinic instability.