During 30 years Physical Oceanography has been acquainting scientific community with new achievements in different fields of modern research of the World Ocean. The journal focuses on the problems of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Morskoy Gidrofizicheckiy Zhurnal was founded in 1985 as the All-Union Journal, from 1993 to 2014 it was a scientific publication of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 2015, it was registered as a Russian scientific journal with the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Certificate of Registration of Mass Media PI No. FS77-62201 dated 26 June 2015). It is also registered as a network media outlet (Mass Media Registration Certificate EL No. FS77-68165 dated 27 December 2016). In 2019, due to the reorganisation of the founder, changes were made to the record of media registration: printed version of the journal - registration number PI No. FS77-76617 dated 15 August 2019; online edition - registration number EL No. FS77-76616 dated 15 August 2019. Since January 1987, a translated version of the journal - Physical Oceanography (ISSN 1573-160X), which was called Soviet Journal of Physical Oceanography until 1992, has been published. The first years of its existence Physical Oceanography was translated and published first in paper form (1987-2002), then in electronic form by Kluwer Publishers, later and until 2012. - Springer. Since 2015, the translated version has been published by and on the basis of MHI RAS.