Fundamentals of geophysical hydrodynamics. Translated by Boris Khesin. (Q449107)

This is a clearly written and pedagogically well balanced book on numerous aspects of geophysical hydrodynamic processes that can be useful not only for teachers and graduate students but also for researchers as a good general reference literature. The book contains 272+xiv pages of text divided into five Parts each containing several sections with exercises and references, two Appendices, and Index. Part I includes four sections dealing with main principles and law of motion of an ideal fluid. This covers equations of motion for incompressible and compressible fluids, conservation laws, circulation and Kelvin's theorem, vorticity and helicity for a stratified fluid, various types of flow, and the shallow-water theory. Subjects covered in Part II are grouped in seven sections where one finds issues related to quasi-geostrophic approximations of the equations of motion for rotating barotropic and baroclinic fluids. Starting from introduction to geophysical hydrodynamics, special attention is paid to fluid motions in a rotating system such as different types of flows, waves, vortices, resonant interaction of Rossby waves, and energy balance. Part III contains seven sections all devoted to the hydrodynamic stability and atmospheric dynamics. In this sense, the basic ideas about stability within the linear and nonlinear theory approaches are followed by the stability analysis of plane-parallel flows of uniform and nonuniform fluids, and flows of stratified fluids with a linear velocity profile. These procedures are applied to studying the baroclinic instability and stability properties of zonal flows of a barotropic atmosphere. Friction effects of viscous fluids in geophysical boundary layers are considered in five sections of Part IV. Here one finds the basic Navier-Stokes equations with boundary conditions, the energy dissipation and heat transfer processes, boundary layers in global geophysical flows, the vorticity evolution equation, stability analysis of Rossby waves, stability of shear flows with arbitrary velocity profiles, and theory of turbulence in atmospheric boundary layers. The final Part V contains four sections with applications of the fluid dynamic type equations in mechanics to describe and find analogies with motions of gyroscopes and mechanical tops. The last Section of this group deals with modeling the general circulation of a viscous atmosphere with inclusion of friction and external heating, and effects of the angle between the axis of general rotation and direction of the gravity action. Two appendices, Appendix A and B, offer details on setting the boundary conditions and the stability analysis of the Kolmogorov flow with external friction, respectively.