Physical Oceanography
Combined Homework and Laboratory Set 4
Due 2 March 2004

Late homework will cost 15 points per week or part of a week it is late.

The goal of this laboratory session is to learn how to use Java OceanAtlas 3.1. You will be using OceanAtlas for some future labs, so now is the time to learn to use some of its features and to become acquainted with the program.

Java OceanAtlas Guided Tour (From OceanAtlas Software) © OceanAtlas Software

I expect you to spend about an hour working with Java OceanAtlas so you can use it in later studies. I am using the software on Mac running OS 10.2.3, but it also runs under Windows and Unix.

Java OceanAtlas was developed by John Osborne at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, James Swift at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Edward Flinchem of Seattle.

• You can download the latest version, JOA 3.0, from the new web site at http://odf.ucsd.edu/joa/jsindex.html.
• The java version is available on a computer in Room 617 in the O&M Building.
• If you have difficulties with Java Ocean Atlas, you may wish to try a similar program, Ocean Data View from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany: http://www.awi-bremerhaven.de/GEO/ODV/

The software allows you to look at the internal structure of the oceans, including temperature, salinity, density, potential density, and stability frequency, as a function of depth and as cross-sections using hydrographic data collected by various expeditions to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean.

The Java OceanAtlas Guided Tour is a good introduction to the capabilities of the software. Please go through the on-line Guided tour, and print out the plots or maps you produce. If you are not at College Station, you do not need to send me the plots.

Revised on: 5 September, 2004