Jason C. Goodman
Assistant Professor of Physics
Office: Science Center 204
Office Hours: Tues-Thurs, 2-5p
Phone: x5855
Email: goodman_jason@wheatoncollege.edu
Degrees
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.A., Carleton College
Main Interests
Most of my graduate training has been in geophysical fluid mechanics: the study of the motion of atmospheres and oceans. I approach these problems using a combination of laboratory experiments, "chalkboard" models, and large-scale computer simulations.
Research Interests
My research topics broadly consider the fluid mechanics of atmospheres, oceans, and ice. I'm interested in flows of mass and heat in ice-covered oceans: these include the Earth, during periods of glaciation which occurred about 600 million years ago, and also the icy outer moons of the solar system (Europa, Enceladus, and others). This latter work, collaborating with Geoff Collins and others, has been dubbed "planetary oceanography". I'm also interested in the year-to-year variability of Earth's atmosphere and ocean in modern climates.
Teaching Interests
I'm an earth scientist, but I've always considered myself first and foremost a physicist. As such, I teach a mixture of environmental science classes and traditional physics. In environmental science, I teach general courses on climate change, meteorology and oceanography, and fluid mechanics. I also teach general physics courses including electricity and magnetism, electronics, optics, and computational methods for solving physics problems.
Other Interests
Tabletop and online games, hiking, model building, kites, cooking.
Publications
Vance, S. and J. C. Goodman, 2008. Physical Oceanography of an Ice-Covered Moon. Book chapter, in Europa, (R. Pappalardo, W. McKinnon, K. Khurana, eds.)
Goodman, J. C. and G. C. Collins, 2006. Enceladus‚s South Polar Sea. Icarus.
Goodman, J. C., 2006. Through Thick and Thin: Marine and Meteoric Ice in a Snowball Earth‚ Climate. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L16701, doi: 10.1029/2006GL026840.
Goodman, J. C., G. C. Collins, J. Marshall, and R. T. Pierrehumbert, 2004. Hydrothermal plume dynamics on Europa: Implications for Chaos Formation. Journal of Geophysical Research ˜ Planets 109:E03008, doi: 10.1029/2003JE002073.
Goodman, J. C. and R. T. Pierrehumbert, 2003. Glacial flow of Floating Marine Ice in Snowball Earth‚. Journal of Geophysical Research 108:C10, 3308, doi: 10.1029/2002JC001471.
Goodman, J. C. and J. Marshall, 2003. The role of neutral singular vectors in middle-latitude air−sea coupling. Journal of Climate, 16, 88−102.
Goodman, J. C. and J. Marshall, 2002. Using neutral singular vectors to study low-frequency atmospheric variability. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 59(22), 3206−3222.