Springer Dynamic Meteorology: 4 (Environmental Fluid Mechanics, 4)

1. ABOUT THE DISCIPLINE 'DYNAMIC METEOROLOGY' The name 'dynamic meteorology' is traditional for designating a university course as well as the scientific branch of meteorology as a whole. While there is no need to abandon this name, it needs contemporary treatment and specifications in its definition. A synonym for it could be 'dynamics (more precisely, hydrodynamics or fluid dynamics) of the atmosphere'. It suggests the relationship of this discipline to general hydrodynamics and applied mathematics and its pronounced theoretical nature. Besides the atmosphere, however, our planet has another (liquid) envelope - the hydrosphere (world's ocean), which also concerns ocean dynamics and, therefore, it is necessary to define, from a unified standpoint, the subject and aims of the disciplines dealing with the dynamics of the processes which take place in both fluid spheres. Such a unified standpoint offers the so-called geophysical fluid dynamics. During the past few years this description is encountered quite often in scientific literature concerning the Earth as a planet. Obviously, a scientific branch or a science is created whose subject is our planet and the investigation methods are borrowed from classical fluid dynamics and applied mathematics, including the most recent numerical methods. As can be seen from its very suitable name, it is the dynamics of quite definite geophysical fluids (atmosphere, ocean and even the liquid inside of the Earth) and not of some abstract (often perfect) flUids, as in classical hydrodynamics.