Notes on the 1971 summer study program in geophysical fluid dynamics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Abstract

A topic, such as planetary atmospheric dynamics, is necessarily a speculative one because of the extreme difficulty of obtaining detailed observations. A single datum is often responsible for several "theories". Andy Ingersoll was continually challenged during his attempts to present a coherent picture of a broad spectrum of observations and speculations about the atmospheres of the planets. He emerged somewhat battered but still intact. All of us felt rewarded by his efforts. The formal lectures were followed by a microsymposium on planetary atmospheres which included discussions of the latest observations, speculative theories and simple models of certain gross features.