swDynamicHeight {oce} | R Documentation

## Dynamic height of seawater profile

### Description

Compute the dynamic height of a column of seawater.

### Usage

    swDynamicHeight(x, referencePressure=2000,
                    subdivisions=500, rel.tol=.Machine$double.eps^0.25,
                                eos=getOption("oceEOS", default="gsw"))

### Arguments

`x` | a `section` object, or a `ctd` object.
`referencePressure` | reference pressure [dbar]
`subdivisions` | number of subdivisions for call to `integrate`. (The default value is considerably larger than the default for `integrate`, because otherwise some test profiles failed to integrate.
`rel.tol` | absolute tolerance for call to `integrate`. Note that this call is made in scaled coordinates, i.e. pressure is divided by its maximum value, and dz/dp is also divided by its maximum.
`eos` | equation of state, either `"unesco"` or `"gsw"`.

### Details

If the first argument is a `section`, then dynamic height is calculated for each station within a section, and returns a list containing distance along the section along with dynamic height.

If the first argument is a `ctd`, then this returns just a single value, the dynamic height.

If `eos="unesco"`, processing is as follows. First, a piecewise-linear model of the density variation with pressure is developed using `approxfun`. (The option `rule=2` is used to extrapolate the uppermost density up to the surface, preventing a possible a bias for bottle data, in which the first depth may be a few metres below the surface.) A second function is constructed as the density of water with salinity 35PSU, temperature of 0degC, and pressure as in the `ctd`. The difference of the reciprocals of these densities, is then integrated with `integrate` with pressure limits `0` to `referencePressure`. (For improved numerical results, the variables are scaled before the integration, making both independent and dependent variables be of order one.)

NOTE: As of early 2015, the `eos="gsw"` case is handled exactly the same as the `"unesco"` case, because the GSW C code (version 3.0.3) lacks the requisite functions.

### Value

In the first form, a list containing `distance`, the distance [km] from the first station in the section and `height`, the dynamic height [m].

In the second form, a single value, containing the dynamic height [m].

### Author(s)

Dan Kelley

### References

Gill, A.E., 1982. Atmosphere-ocean Dynamics, Academic Press, New York, 662 pp.

### Examples

        ## Not run:
    library(oce)
    data(section)

    # Dynamic height and geostrophy
    par(mfcol=c(2,2))
    par(mar=c(4.5,4.5,2,1))

    # Left-hand column: whole section
    # (The smoothing lowers Gulf Stream speed greatly)
    westToEast <- subset(section, 1<=stationId&stationId<=123)
    dh <- swDynamicHeight(westToEast)
    plot(dh$distance, dh$height, type='p', xlab="", ylab="dyn. height [m]")
    ok <- !is.na(dh$height)
    smu <- supsmu(dh$distance, dh$height)
    lines(smu, col="blue")
    f <- coriolis(section[["station", 1]][["latitude"]])
    g <- gravity(section[["station", 1]][["latitude"]])
    v <- diff(smu$y)/diff(smu$x) * g / f / 1e3 # 1e3 converts to m
    plot(smu$x[-1], v, type='l', col="blue", xlab="distance [km]", ylab="velocity [m/s]")

    # right-hand column: gulf stream region, unsmoothed
    gs <- subset(section, 102<=stationId&stationId<=124)
    dh.gs <- swDynamicHeight(gs)
    plot(dh.gs$distance, dh.gs$height, type='b', xlab="", ylab="dyn. height [m]")
    v <- diff(dh.gs$height)/diff(dh.gs$distance) * g / f / 1e3
    plot(dh.gs$distance[-1], v, type='l', col="blue",
      xlab="distance [km]", ylab="velocity [m/s]")

    ## End(Not run)

[Package oce version 0.9-18 Index]