This is a glossary of some of the recondite jargon, acronyms and other abbreviations, concepts, and terms used in oceanography, climatology and related fields. These fields include but are not limited to oceanography, meteorology, paleontology, climatology, geology, numerical analysis, signal processing and statistics. The acronyms and abbreviations are not only expanded but, whenever possible, the expanded form is defined or explained.
Links to related sites on the Web are also included in cases where they exist, e.g. NOAA, NASA, etc., or, more accurately, where they they exist and have been found. I've also included references for further study for most entries, and in many cases multiple references, since I neither intend nor want to be the final word on any of the topics included. I desire only to make available a reasonably state-of-the-art single repository of information and references to those interested in any of the topics included herein.
I also intend to include several types of entries not usually (if ever) found in reference works pertaining to the geosciences. I've already mentioned the descriptions of and hypertext links to appropriate government and private research institutions worldwide. I want to include similar information about specific research programs or initiatives of past, present and future, e.g. IGY, COARE, TOGA, WOCE, etc. These will include not only the land- and ocean-based investigations, but also the rich variety of programs to remotely sense data from satellite and airplane platforms. These entries will include information about specific initiatives (EOS), satellite programs, specific satellites (ADEOS), and even individual sensors on satellites.
Another type of entry will deal with applicable computer software, i.e. numerical circulation models for atmosphere and ocean, data analysis packages, etc. The software entries almost inevitably require the inclusion of a few related computer terms, e.g. FORTRAN, UNIX, etc., that are used almost as often as, say, Rossby wave in the halls of oceanographic institutions. I'm sure there are other types of entries I haven't yet described or, more likely, haven't yet thought of including, but are most likely pertinent if not necessary to include.
Why am I doing this? In addition to being an obsessive/compulsive sort of pack rat about these things, I'm largely dissatisfied with the disparate, obsolete and incomplete sources currently available. For example, none of the older oceanography glossaries or encyclopedias have much of anything about Rossby or Kelvin waves, and the newer glossaries that encompass the earth or environmenal sciences have, if anything, not much more than an entry along the lines of "this is a type of wave found in the ocean."
I also like (and more often than not need) pointers to further and usually more technical reading in my reference works, and preferably to reasonably state of the art references. Finally, recent advances in computer technology (more about which below) have made it possible to create and maintain dynamic multiple versions of such a reference work, in addition to allowing, via the World Wide Web, links from a hypertext version of the work to pertinent sites scattered throughout the world.
What constitutes a ``typical'' entry? Well, within a rather large envelope I want most entries to comprise several basic elements. First, there'll be a brief description of what a word or term means or what an acronym or abbrevation stands for followed by the same sort of brief description, both written in a reasonably jargon-free style that can be understood by those who think that a manifold belongs in an automobile.
This will be followed by further pertinent or interesting information about the person, place or thing being described when such information is available and applicable. I suspect the typical reader would be every bit as unenthralled as I would be to have to wade through a couple of paragraphs of particulars about, say, the Sverdrup measurement unit beyond what it is in terms of more familiar units and a brief mention of who the appellation honors. Some things simply don't require much verbiage to be adequately described.
Conversely, some concepts are inherently complex and as such require more than a bit of background to convey their meaning in such terms as can be understood by the nonspecialist. Examples of this type would include the Reynolds equations, the capacitance method, double Kelvin waves, and the like. Equations are likely to sneak into this type of entry on occasion, although I'm mindful of the warning given to him by Stephen Hawking's publisher about each equation losing a percentage of one's potential readership.
Folded somewhere into the mix thus far will be a brief statement as to the applicability of the entry to our geosciences context when it has a larger or more colloquial meaning with which it might be confused. And, in the case of parameters and the like, some idea will be given as to their typical values or numerical magnitudes to lend an air of pragmatism to the enterprise.
Finally, there will be a pointer to further information on the topic at the end of the entry, where applicable. Some entries just won't need such a thing, and others practically scream for it. The reference(s) will be to either an article available somewhere in a hardcopy print version or to a Web site. The latter is most applicable when an organization or project that's being defined has a home site somewhere on the Web. I'll try, in the case of references to articles in print, to avoid the grey literature and, if at all possible, give a pointer to a review article that will itself offer a rich variety of further research directions.
Hardcopy reference books (i.e. dictionaries, encyclopedias, glossaries) that cover reasonably similar material include Allaby and Allaby (1991), Allaby (1985), Allaby (1994), Art (1993), Ashworth (1991), Charton (1988), DeLoach (1994), Fairbridge (1966), Mayhew and Penny (1992), McIntosh (1963), Monkhouse and Small (1976), Moore (1967), Parker (1977), Stachowitsch (1992), Tver (1979), Whitten and Brooks (1972) and Whittow (1984). Books containing glossaries that were especially helpful include Bowen (1991) and Huggett (1991).
This is being developed using the LaTeX 2 HTML software package (written in Perl) developed by Nikos Drakos, which allows both hypertext (HTML) and printable (LaTeX) versions to be maintained simultaneously in the same source code. The separate versions are not identical (as indeed they shouldn't be due to the inherent limitations and capabilities of both media types) but reflect (or bloody well should) the state of the art of each presentation method. For instance, the online version features direct links to pertinent Web sites, while in the hardcopy version these electronic addresses are seen as footnotes.
The ``competition'' on the Web thus far includes
A hardcopy version of this glossary is available as either as compressed (by gzip) dvi file created from the LaTeX source code file or as a compressed PostScript file created from the dvi file using the dvips utility. The current version requires around 340 pages when printed. This glossary is copyrighted 1995-1996 by myself, but can be freely transmitted in unaltered form for nonprofit purposes.
As a final fair warning, I should mention that the URLs or links to other sites on the Web liberally sprinkled throughout this document are in no way guaranteed to be up-to-date or otherwise valid. These things are still changing more often than the color of Dennis Rodman's hair, so it will be a while before the URL becomes anywhere near as stable a concept as, say, an ISBN number.