John Simpson leads a research group in the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University in Wales, which is developing new methods to observe and model turbulence and the mixing that plays a crucial role in biological production. He is a seagoing physical oceanographer with a broad interest in shelf seas and estuaries and his research has focussed on the physical mechanisms which control the environment of the shelf seas. He has taught Physics of the Ocean at Bangor and other universities worldwide for more than 40 years and was responsible for establishing the first Masters-level course in Physical Oceanography within the UK. In 2008 Professor Simpson was awarded the Fridtjof Nansen Medal of the European Geosciences Union for his outstanding contribution to understanding the physical processes of the shelf seas and the Challenger Medal of the Challenger Society for his exceptional contribution to Marine Science.

Preface; 1. Introduction to the shelf seas; 2. Physical forcing of the shelf seas: what drives the motion of ocean?; 3. Response to forcing: the governing equations and some basic solutions; 4. Waves, turbulent motions and mixing; 5. Life in the shelf seas; 6. Seasonal stratification and the spring bloom; 7. Interior mixing and phytoplankton survival in stratified environments; 8. Tidal mixing fronts: their location, dynamics and biological significance; 9. Regions of freshwater influence (ROFIs); 10. The shelf edge system; 11. Future challenges in shelf seas; References; Index.

Provides a quantitative, accessible approach to the fundamental physics and biology of the coastal ocean, for undergraduate and graduate students.