oce (version 0.2-1)

swAlphaOverBeta: Ratio of seawater thermal expansion coefficient to haline contraction coefficient

Description

Compute $\alpha/\beta$ using McDougall's (1987) algorithm.

Usage

swAlphaOverBeta(salinity, temperature=NULL, pressure=NULL,
                   isTheta=FALSE)

Arguments

salinity

either salinity [PSU] (in which case temperature and pressure must be provided) or a ctd object (in which case salinity, temperature and pressure ar

temperature

in-situ temperature [$^\circ$C]

pressure

pressure [dbar]

isTheta

Set TRUE if the temperature a potential temperature, FALSE otherwise.

Value

• Value in psu/$^\circ$C.

Details

If the first argument is a ctd object, then salinity, temperature and pressure values are extracted from it, and used for the calculation.

References

McDougall, T.J. 1987. "Neutral Surfaces" Journal of Physical Oceanography vol 17 pages 1950-1964

Examples

# 0.3476 (from p1964 of McDougall 1987)
 ab <- swAlphaOverBeta(40, 10, 4000, isTheta=TRUE)