sw.beta {oce}R Documentation

Seawater haline contraction coefficient

Description

Compute beta using McDougall's (1987) algorithm. NOTE: this conflicts with base::beta, so be sure to prefix as sw.beta().

Usage

b <- sw.beta(ctd, is.theta=FALSE)
b <- sw.beta(S, t, p, is.theta=FALSE)

Arguments

ctd an object of class "ctd".
S salinity [PSU]
t in-situ temperature [degC]
p pressure [dbar]
is.theta Set TRUE if t is theta or FALSE if t is in-situ

Details

In the first form, the argument is a ctd object, from which the salinity, temperature and pressure values are extracted and used to for the calculation. Note the use of potential temperature, not temperature.

Value

Value in 1/psu.

Author(s)

Dan Kelley

References

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

Examples

 # 0.72088e-3 (from p1964 of McDougall 1987)
 b <- sw.beta(40, 10, 4000, is.theta=TRUE) 

[Package oce version 0.1.72 Index]