| This dissertation presents, applies, and evaluates a statistical approach to an ocean circulation problem. The objective is to produce a map of ocean velocity in the North Atlantic based on sparse measurements along ship tracks, based on a Bayesian approach with a physical model. The Stommel Gulf Stream model which relates the wind stress curl to the transport stream function is the physical model. A Gibbs sampler is used to extract features from the posterior velocity field. To specify the prior, the equation of the Stommel Gulf Stream model on a two-dimensional grid is used. Comparisons with earlier approaches used by oceanographers are also presented. |
