CIE4607 – Oceans, sea-level and bathymetry – Quarter 3 –  4 ECTS
Short description: This course is suitable for students with an interest in ocean tides, GIA, radar altimetry, bathymetry and their use. Lectures are combined with assignments and a written exam is given at the end of the course. It is taught by Roland Klees, Caroline Katsman and Ricardo Riva.  

Personal experience of Robbert Bormans – 2016

The first part of the course is about the ocean tides which occur on Earth. Furthermore, tide gauge are mentioned which gets followed up by explanation of GIA.

Roland has two weeks to explain radar altimetry data. In these two weeks he talks about the principles of radar altimetry, corrections that need to be taken into account, some geophysical parameters and applications of radar altimetry.

Caroline talks, spread over two lectures, about the other applications of radar altimetry data. For  example El Niño, mesoscale eddies and deep ocean convection are treated.

The last part is more about global mean sea level and mentions the pros and cons of observations. Also, reconstructions and projections are covered.

There were 2 assignments: one about (modelling of) tides and the last about the radar altimetry data. Note: They tend to change the set-up a bit. They want to add one assignment (so total will be three) about bathymetry.

I thought it was an interesting course, although some parts are better explained than others.