Estimating Exchange Rates of Water in Embayments using Simple Budget Equations. part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Keith Sverdrup, National Science Foundation
Simple budgets may be used to estimate the exchange of water in embayments that capitalize on the concept of steady state and conservation principals. This is especially true for bays that experience a significant exchange of freshwater. This exchange of freshwater may reduce the average salt concentration in the bay compared to seawater if it involves addition of freshwater from rivers, R, and/or precipitation, P. Alternatively, it may increase the average salt concentration in the bay compared to seawater if there is relatively little river input and high evaporation, E. Since freshwater input changes the salt concentration in the bay, and salt is a conservative material, it is possible to combine two steady state budgets for a bay, one for salt and one for water, to solve for the magnitude of the water flows that enter and exit the bay mouth. Students will make actual calculations for the inflow and outflow of water to Puget Sound, Washington and the Mediterranean Sea and compare them to actual measured values.

What is the fate of CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion? part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Paul Quay
A box model is used to simulate the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the industrial era and predict the future increase in atmospheric CO2 levels during the next century.

Applications of Vector Operators for Surface Atmospheric/Oceanic Processes part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
David Smith, United States Naval Academy
This lab exercise provides students with activities utilizing vector operations within the context of the atmospheric and oceanic environments.

Air-sea Interactions: Activities in Oceanography part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Steve LaDochy, California State University-Los Angeles
This online set of activities help students learn properties of ocean waves, wind-wave relationships and properties of tsunamis.

Calculation of the Magnitude of Lunar and Solar Tidal Forces on the Earth part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Randal Mandock, Clark Atlanta University; Randal Mandock, Clark Atlanta University
Project in which students calculate the magnitude of lunar and solar tidal forces on the earth. They calculate the solar tidal effect relative to the lunar tidal effect and the relative solar tidal effect for spring-tide conditions.

Gulf Anoxia Course Project part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Sadredin Moosavi, RCTC
In this activity students work in groups to investigate the problem of Gulf of Mexico hypoxia before developing mitigation strategies based on local contriubtions to the problem. The students present their ideas in a public meeting debate format from which a solution must be selected by the entire class.

Landscape Diffusion Lab part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Kirsten Menking, Vassar College
Students create a STELLA model of two marine terrace platforms separated in elevation by a cliff, using the hillslope flux equation to simulate the change in the cliff face over time as diffusive processes tear it down.