Macquarie University

Marine Climate, Weather and Coastal Oceanography - ENVS301

Our oceans regulate and drive climate change, whilst the coastal and shelf environments experience some of the greatest impacts of climate change. This unit provides students with a comprehensive understanding of these interactions and impacts on a range of scales (ocean basin to regional coast) and time scales (past millennia to future decades).

The unit is taught in three modules:

Module 1 – Marine Weather and Climate covers the tropics to the polar regions, with a focus on sea-surface temperature, precipitation, wind-fields, marine clouds, surface ocean currents, ocean wave generation, extreme maritime storms, synoptic climatology and large scale climate drivers.

Module 2 – Coastal Oceanography covers continental shelf currents, coastal winds, wave transformation, sea-level variability, shoreface and surf zone processes, estuarine processes, storm surges, coastal flooding and sea-level rise.

Module 3 – Marine Climate Change focuses on ‘How to Determine Past and Future Long-Term Changes in Marine Climate and Coastal Dynamics – Real World and Modelling Approaches’. The module covers seasonal, annual, decadal and centennial modes of ocean-atmosphere variability and predictability, evidence-based and modelling approaches to sea surface temperature, salinity and current change, sea-level change and ocean winds, wave climate change and coastal response.