Inverse Modeling of the Ocean and Atmosphere

Two hundred years ago, when Carl Friedrich Gauss was a youth of 17, he developed the method of least squares, which he would later apply with great success to geodesic and astronomical measurements. Today the method of least squares and the related statistical concepts of linear regression and maximum likelihood form the basis of inverse theory—the set of methods that is used in a wide variety of scientific and technical fields to analyze data and to extract quantitative inferences about the physical world. Andrew Bennett's Inverse Modeling of the Ocean and Atmosphere discusses the application of inverse theory to time-dependent models of the oceanic and atmospheric circulations; the objective is to calibrate empirical model parameters, to estimate initial and boundary conditions, and to test statistical hypotheses.