My book entitled The Turbulent Ocean (referred to later as TTO) was written in 2003. It provides an account of much of the knowledge that there was then of the processes leading to turbulence in the ocean, but it was not written as a course that might be followed and used to introduce students to turbulent flow. Rather, it is a text useful for those beginning or already involved in research. It might form the basis of a number of advanced courses about ocean physics, teachers selecting material according to their needs or specialities.

I was asked to write a shorter book, an introductory course on turbulence in the ocean. Although believing that the best undergraduate and postgraduate courses are based and modelled on a teacher's own experience and enthusiasms, and that to follow a ‘set text’ may be less enjoyable for students, I became convinced that a simplified text, more directly usable in teaching students unfamiliar with fluid motion, might be of value. Turbulence is a subject of which at least a basic understanding is essential in engineering and in many of the natural sciences, but particularly for students of oceanography. Moreover, many students, whose main interests are not in oceanography and who will not later address their talents to the study of the ocean, find interest in the sea and are motivated by aspects of their studies that are related or have application to matters of public and international concern, for example those of pollution and climate change that are at present being addressed by ocean scientists.