Fn-Fz

 

FNMOC

Abbreviation for the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, a center that specializes in meteorology, oceanography, and satellite and satellite-derived imagery on a global scale. FNMOC products are made available via a distribution system called NODDS. See the FNMOC Web site.

 

FNOC

Abbreviation for Fleet Numerical Ocean Center. See Clancy (1992).

 

FOCAL

Acronym for Programme Français Océan et Climat dans l'Atlantique Equtorial. See Katz (1987) and Richardson and Reverdin (1987).

 

FOCI

Acronym for Fisheries-Oceanography Cooperative Investigations, a collection of NOAA programs attempting to understand the influence of environment on the abundance of various commercially valuable fish and shellfish stocks in Alaskan waters and their role in the ecosystem. See the FOCI Web site.

 

fohn wind

A warm, dry wind which blows to the lee of a mountain range, prevalent on the northern slopes of the Alps.

 

folkloric winds

This refers to the colorful names that have been given to winds that appear in specific geographic locations and/or at certain times of the year. Examples are abroholos, baguio, barat, bise, bora, buran, chinook, etesian, gregale, haboob, harmattan, khamsin, kosava, leste, levanter, leveche, libeccio, maestro, mistral, pampero, reshabar, rrashaba, scirocco, seistan wind, shamal, simoom,solano, sumatra, tramontona, vardarac, vendavales, and zephyr.

 

Foraminifera

An order of Sarcodina, the members of which have numerous fine anastomosing pseudopodia and a shell which is calcareous; the shells of these organisms, when deposited in ocean sediments, are the source of climatic information about ancient temperatures.

 

FORAST

Acronym for Forest Responses to Anthropogenic Stress, a project designed to: (1) determine whether evidence of long-term growth patterns of several species of eastern forest trees was apparent in tree-ring chronologies from with the region; and (2) identify environmental variables that were temporally or spatially correlated with any observed changes. The project was supported by the U.S. EPA and the National Park Service. Parts of the FORAST database have been incorporated into the ITRDB. See the FORAST Web site.

 

Forbes, Edward (1815-1854)

A British scientist considered by many to be the founder of the science of biological oceanography. In a time when most investigations were concerned with zoology, Forbes produced some of the first ecological generalizations about marine life to receive wide notice, the most famous of which was his recognition of distribution by bathymetric zones. His belief that no life existed in the zone below 300 fathoms was incorrect yet ultimately useful in that it did much to spur the investigation of the depths of the ocean.

Forbes was also one of the earliest systematic biogeographers, recognizing a series of provinces in the European (i.e. Arctic, Boreal, Celtic, Lusitanian, Meditteranean and Black Seas) seas. His book about these seas, Natural History of the European Seas (completed after his death by Robert Godwin-Austen), is considered to be the first treatise on marine ecology. He also was the first to consider population dynamics in the sea, and founded the science of paleoecology in a report in which he described the fossil record which might be expected in the Aegean Sea if it were to be elevated or filled with sand. See Hedgpeth (1957c).

 

Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL)

A part of the NOAA ERL network organized to transfer scientific and technological developments in atmospheric and oceanic research to the nation's operational services. It conducts programs to integrate, evaluate, and apply developments to information and forecast systems. See the FSL Web site.

 

foreshore

The sloping portion of a beach profile that lies between a berm crest (or, in its absence, the upper limit of wave swash at high tide) and the low water mark of the backrush of the wave swash at low tide. This term has been used synonymously with beach face, although the foreshore can also contain some of the flat portion of the profile below the beach face. See Komar (1976).

 

forest succession model

A type of vegetation dynamics model that represents regeneration, growth and mortality of statistical populations of individual plants on a plot whose size reflects the scale of competition. Such models simulation the natural cyclical behavior of ecosystems if no environmental change is specified. See Shugart (1984).

 

formation

In lithostratigraphy, the fundamental and mappable unit based upon the lithology of the rocks included within it. See Briggs and Crowther (1990), p. 462.

 

formation type

A group of convergent plant formations occurring on different continents.

 

FORMEX

Acronym for Formation Experiment, an Antarctic CRC project to define the mechanisms underlying the formation of sea ice and its role on the formation of Antarctic Surface Waters and air-sea interaction. Specific goals including obtaining quantitative estimates of the rate of formation of Antarctic surface waters in the ice pack during winter, quantitative estimates of the transfer of heat between ocean and atmosphere and the role of advection of surface and circumpolar deep water on these transfers, and better understanding of the processes and mechanisms involving in the mixing of Polar Zone waters with complex zone waters near the Antarctic Shelf. See the FORMEX Web site.

 

fossil fuel

Coal, petroleum, or natural gas or any fuel derived from these sources. The burning of these is a significant anthropogenic source of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

 

fossilized mixing region

In physical oceanography, this refers to the water trapped between the depths of the summer and winter mixed layers. This is a key feature in the formation of Central Water via the process of subduction. See Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).

 

fossil turbulence

In the ocean, temperature microstructure that remains after the turbulence that presumably created it decays, i.e. there is no velocity microstructure. See Turner (1973).

 

Fourier analysis

The determination of the harmonic components of a complex waveform, i.e. the terms of a Fourier series that represents the waveform.

 

FOX

Acronym for Fishery-Oceanography Experiment.

 

f plane approximation

In oceanography, a coordinate system approximation where the Coriolis parameter f is, in a simplified form of the equations of motion, assumed to be a constant. The dynamics as such take place in a plane tangent to the surface of the Earth where f everywhere takes its value at the point of tangency. This approximation holds reasonably well over latitudinal distances over which f doesn't vary much (i.e. a few degrees) or over a few tens of degrees near the poles where f varies slowly. See Gill (1982).

 

fps

Abbreviation for the foot-pound-second system of units.

 

fractal cloud models

A type of inhomogeneous cloud model used to parameterize cloud properties. The fractal models are used to study the dependence of effective cloud parameters of macrostructural parameters such as the variance and wavenumber spectra of cloud liquid water. See the fractal cloud Web site.

 

FRAM

Acronym for Fine Resolution Antarctic Model.

 

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790)

See Peterson et al. (1996), p. 40.

 

free atmosphere

In meteorology, the part of the troposphere above the planetary boundary layer. It is free of the influence of the earth's surface and, on the average, slightly stable.

 

free-living nitrogen fixation

The process where cyanobacteria and some heterotrophic bacteria can fix nitrogen without symbiotic assocations. The cyanobacteria are important in many aquatic ecosystems and in exposed soil crusts in a few terrestrial ecosystems, but light limits their importance in most soils. See Davidson (1995).

 

FRH

Abbreviation for Fixed Relative Humidity.

 

friction velocity

A velocity calculated via dimensional analysis that defines the velocity scale for the flow near a wall. This is also called the dynamic velocity. See Kagan (1995).

 

fringing reef

One of three main geomorphological types of coral reefs, the other two being barrier reefs and atolls. These are formed close to shore on rocky coastlines by the growth of corals and associated hydrozoans, alcyonarians and calcareous algae. Fragments of limestone derived from such bioherms are welded together by the encrusting calcareous algae as well as by the deposition of interstitial calcium carbonate cement, the latter brought about by geochemical reactions and possibly bacterial action. The zone of living corals is separated from the shore by a shallow reef flat where reduced circulation, periods of tidal emersion, and the accumulation of sediments inhibit coral growth. See Barnes and Hughes (1988).

 

FROST

Acronym for the Antarctic First Regional Observing Study of the Troposphere Project, a program whose goals are to study the meteorology of the Antarctic, to determine the strengths and weaknesses of operational analyses and forecasts over the continent and in the surrounding ocean areas, and to assess the value of new forms of satellite data that are becoming available. It is based around three special observing periods of a month's duration in July 1994, October/November 1994, and January 1995. Comprehensive data sets of model fields and in situ and satellite observations have been established for each period. See ().

 

frost point temperature

The temperature to which air must be cooled at constant pressure and mixing ratio to reach saturation with respect to a plane ice surface.

 

Froude number

In fluid mechanics, a dimensionless parameter expressing the ratio of nonlinear advection to the pressure gradient acceleration associated with the variation of fluid depth, i.e. of the fluid speed to a measure of the internal wave speed. It is defined by

where u is the flow velocity, g the gravitational acceleration, and H the fluid depth, and the approximate phase speed of shallow water gravity waves. A Froude number greater than unity is indicative of what is called supercritical flow, and one less than unity of subcritical flow.

When dealing with internal waves, an internal or densimetric Froude number is defined which corresponds to the ordinary Froude number with with the reduced gravity g' replacing g in the above. See Turner (1973) and Houze (1993).

 

FSL

Abbreviation for Forecast Systems Laboratory.

 

FSSP

Abbreviation for Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe.

 

FTIR

Abbreviation for Fourier Transform Infrared Radiometer.

 

full moon

In tidal mechanics, the times when the Earth-centered longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180 , i.e. they are in opposition. At such times the Moon is completely opposite the Sun and fully illuminated. Spring tidesspringtide occur during full moons.

 

fully developed sea

A hypothesized situation in wave prediction methods in which storm duration and fetch are both long enough such that energy is being dissipated internally and radiated away at the same rate at which it is being transferred from the wind to the water in the form of waves. In a fully developed sea a steady state of maximum wave development is achieved. See Komar (1976).

 

functional compensation hypothesis

The hypothesis that species overlap with one another in functional properties to a sufficient degree that the loss of any one species has negligible effects on an ecosystem. There is no countervailing hypothesis since there is little or no evidence that each species plays such a unique role that its absence would result in dramatic changes in an ecosystem. This is also known as the redundancy hypothesis. See Heywood (1995).

 

fusain

Fossilized charcoal. This is almost pure carbon and the product of ancient wildfires. The presence of this is a useful paleoclimate indicator in that the susceptibility of an environment to fire is influenced by the climate, with fire-prone environments predominantly being those experiencing a burst of seasonal growth (triggered by rains) followed by seasonal drought, with the droughts ending with thunderstorms that produce lightning but not always rain. See Sellwood and Price (1994).