R: Potential temperature of seawater

theta {seacarb} | R Documentation

## Potential temperature of seawater

### Description

Computes theta, the potential temperature of seawater given original temperature, salinity, pressure, and reference pressure

### Usage

    theta(S=35, T=25, P=0, Pref=0)

### Arguments

`S` | Salinity on the practical salinity scale, default is 35
`T` | Temperature in degrees Celsius, default is 25oC
`P` | Hydrostatic pressure in bar (surface = 0; 1000 db = 100 bar), default is 0
`Pref` | Reference hydrostatic pressure in bar, default is 0

### Details

Computes the potential temperature of seawater relative to a chosen reference pressure following Fofonoff and Millard (1983). The potential temperature theta is the temperature that a water parcel would have if were moved adiabatically to another pressure level `Pref`. Typically, the potential temperature is referenced to the surface (Pref=0). The potential teperature depends on the original salinity `S`, in-situ temperature `T` and pressure `P`.

This routine is essentially a wrapper for the `swTheta` routine of the 'oce' package. Unlike the latter, pressure units here are given in bars and method="unesco" is prescribed.

### Value

`theta` | potential temperature of seawater (C)

### Author(s)

James Orr james.orr@lsce.ipsl.fr

### References

Fofonoff, P. and R. C. Millard Jr, 1983. Algorithms for computation of fundamental properties of seawater. Unesco Technical Papers in Marine Science, 44, 53 pp.

### See Also

`swTheta`.

### Examples

       #Calculate the potential temperature for a sample at 1000 db referenced to the surface
       theta <- theta(S=35, T=25, P=100, Pref=0)

[Package seacarb version 3.1.1 Index]