Ocean circulation and climate / Циркуляция океана и климат

This book is concerned with the role of the ocean in the climate system, with a focus on physical processes relevant to scientifically describing and understanding that role. The two chapters in this Part I offer a context for the discussion extending over the nearly 30 chapters that follow. We are introduced in this Part to notions of the huge space and time scales over which ocean phenomena play a role in climate. Such phenomena extend from the millimeter and seconds relevant for irreversibly mixing heat, carbon, and other tracers, to the global scales of sea level changes, water mass variations, and air–sea interactions that comprise natural and anthropogenic climate fluctuations. We also encounter evidence seen for rather large fluctuations in the paleo record, and consider future climate scenarios suggested through computer simulations. <...>