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"Environmental Turbulence from Clouds through the Ocean"and Theoretical and Computational Issues in Environmental TurbulenceMarch 13-17, 2006Joint with EPSRC/UK Platform grant on Turbulence.
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| Image of Hurricane Ivan | Zeeman Building Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick |
Geophysical and environmental turbulence is of huge importance for weather forecasting and climate modelling, aviation and sea navigation, prediction of natural hazards, etc. This area has experienced significant growth and advances over the last decade thanks to improved understanding of the underlying processes and to the increased computational power available.
To examine these issues, as part of the year-long Warwick Turbulence Symposium at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, we will hold a four day meeting 14 March-17 March, 2006 on: "Environmental Turbulence from Clouds through the Oceans" supported by the Warwick Turbulence Symposium, the EPSRC/UK Platform Grant on Turbulence and the UK Met Office.
A one day workshop on 13 March 2006 (Day 0) discussing "Theoretical and computational issues in environmental turbulence" will precede the main meeting and is supported by the MIR@W programme of the Warwick Mathematics Institute.
The predictive power of operational forecasting remains far from perfect because even the most powerful supercomputers cannot resolve the important small-scale processes in turbulence on an operational basis. Even the most optimistic extrapolations of computer development do not leave any hope that this problem will be solved soon just by direct increase in computational power. Until recently, turbulence in geophysical flows has usually been parametrised as a diffusive process. With more powerful computers, better codes, better parametrisations and improved observations, many more of the details of turbulence have become important. Thus, we should aim at finding better models of the unresolved (subgrid) scales. Further, much work remains to be done in establishing the role of waves in the small-scale dynamics of atmospheric and oceanic turbulence, studying the mechanisms responsible for air-sea exchanges (momentum, gas, sea spray and moisture), formation of rain clouds and the rain dynamics.
Another important question to study is how underwater turbulence interacts with the free surface motions. These processes affect, for example, the spreading of oil slicks and the mixing of CO2 and oxygen to deeper layers in sea-water. Finally, we mention boundary layer turbulence as a classical example important in both atmospheric science and industrial fluid dynamics. This workshop will discuss recent progress in the above fields and will particularly encourage interaction between theoreticians and researchers involved with practical applications including experimentalists.
The objective of these meetings is to complement presentations of some of the latest developments with discussions among some of world's experts to discuss the state of the field and where it will be going.
Questions that would be addressed include:
Where does turbulent physics, modelling and
parametrization matter the most?
Where are its effects least understood?
What are some surprising effects of turbulent mixing in the environment?
Four specific regimes whose mixing will be discussed include: the clouds, air-sea interface, upper ocean mixing and deep ocean mixing. For clouds the focus would be warm rain formation via cloud mixing, cluster formation and other effects. For the oceans, three recent missions would be discussed: CBLAST - Coupled Boundary Layer Air-Sea Transfer. CLIMODE - Studies of the "Eighteen Degree Water" layer from the Gulf Stream. DOME - Dynamics of Overflow, Mixing and Entrainment that relates to deep water mixing.
While the priority of this meeting beyond the invited talks is free-ranging discussions, we hope to allow all participants to present their work either at the poster or contributed level. We are hoping there will be additional funds to provide limited support for some of these additional participants.
Registration for the meeting is possible through our
meeting web site:
http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/staff/rmk/rmk_files/registration.txt
There is limited on-campus housing during the meeting and we can refer
you to local off-campus accommodations.
Information for all the events that are part of the
Warwick Turbulence Symposium is available at:
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~masbu/
turb_symp/WTS.html
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| Image of Hurricane Katrina 1800Z, 27 August 2005 | Eddies associated with the 18 degree water off the Maritime Provinces |