Duration
15h Th, 10h Pr
Number of credits
| Master in oceanography (120 ECTS) | 3 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
Oceanographic data, in-situ or satellite based, cover a wide time-space spectrum of processes, contain errors specific to each measurement system and require specific data analysis methods in function of the use one wants to make of them.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The lecture aims at describing the different measurement techniques used in hte marine environment and to introduce the different type of data analysis tools adapted to each type of data.
1. Data aquisition :
- sampling rules, concept of continous data, discrete data and independant data
- temperature, salinity, pressure, depth, sea surface height, swell, topographics mesurement.
- eulerian and lagrangian mesurements of currents
- winds, precipitations
- tracers, nutriments, visibility
- satellite mesures:
2. Data presentation:
- profiles, horizontal maps, vertical sections, projections, histograms, animations
3 Statistical methods and error estimates :
- probability, distributions, confidence intervals, regressions (linear, multivariate, correlation)
- degrees of freedom, hypothesis testing
- Obvious errors, roundings
- interpolation
- covariance
4. Spatial analysis
- Objective analysis
- Principal component analysis
- Inverse methods
5. Temporal analysis
- correlation function
- Harmonic analysis
- spectral analysis (FFT)
- Wavelets
- digital filters
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
solid mathematical background and basic knoweledge in ocean sciences
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Exercises will use real data sets from a CD-ROM. Matlab will be used for most exercise.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Lectures will be given once per week, with sessions of 3-4 hours
Recommended or required readings
The main reference is
"Data analysis methods in physical oceanography", William J. Emery and Richard E. Thomson.
Assessment methods and criteria
Skills will be assessed during exercise sessions using real inter-disciplinary data sets, taking into account the complexity and quality of methodology, processing, presentation, interpretation and synthesis.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
Interested students should contact me to establish the timetable of this lecture.
Contacts
Aida Alvera Azcárate
AGO-GHER
Université de Liège
Allée du 6 Août, 17, Bât. B5
4000 Liège, Belgium
A.Alvera@ulg.ac.be
Tel.: +32 (0)4 366 3664
Fax.: +32 (0)4 366 9729
Items online
Lecture materials
Lecture notes and other materials can be seen here: