This brief report will examine the field of physical oceanography, one of the areas addressed in a larger study of ocean electronics. Physical Oceanography is defined as follows:
The study of physical conditions and physical processes within the ocean, especially the motions and physical properties of the ocean. This is usually further divided into the activities of descriptive and theoretical oceanography, the former being concerned with observing the oceans to prepare maps of the spatial and temporal variations of its properties, and the latter with constructing theoretical models to attempt to explain the observations. As in most natural sciences, most significant advances are the result of the interaction between theory and observation. Physical oceanography is not a pure but an applied science in which the knowledge of many disciplines is relevant, e.g. fluid mechanics, optics (optical oceanography), acoustics (acoustical oceanography), thermodynamics and, especially in the age of satellites, electromagnetics (satellite oceanography). This is one of four sub-fields into which the general field of oceanography has been divided, the others being biological. chemical and geological oceanography (Baum, 2001, p. 10).
Physical oceanography addresses a wide number and variety of phenomena, including mixing, convection, near-shore dynamics, sediment dynamics, internal/external waves,áflows from harbor scale to global scale, and the climate system. The applications within the field range from general topics in geophysical fluid dynamics to modern techniques of data-assimilation and operational oceanography, and from modeling techniques to acoustical oceanography. Much of the work is highly collaborative, both across fields and across research institutes (Cantrill, 2002).
The answer to the question of when physical oceanography was developed is, according to McCartney (1994), lost in history, though the first writings on ...