updated 08/10/05

The Geophysical Turbulence Program Workshop on
Coherent Structures in Atmosphere and Ocean


at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Boulder, CO USA

NEW
Brief Summary of the GTP 2005 Workshop with photographs!
and
Extended Abstracts

Dates: July 11 to 14 2005

Venue:
The National Center for Atmospheric Research
1850 Table Mesa Dr.
Boulder, Colorado, USA
Mesa Lab
Main Seminar Room

Coordinators:

  • Joe Tribbia (NCAR/GTP)
  • Yoshi Kimura (Nagoya University)
  • Jean-Marc Chomaz (Ecole Polytechnique/LadHyX)

Scientific Program: Coherent structures are ubiquitous in atmosphere and ocean, and clarifying their mechanism is directly related to delineating important aspects of geophysical turbulence. The purpose of this workshop is to survey the functions and features of coherent structures in geophysical turbulence by exchanging ideas from the theory, experiment/observation and computation. The following three topics are planned to be discussed in the workshop:

  1. Vortices and waves in rotating stratified flows (dynamics and stability)

  2. In the past few years great progresses have been made in identifying new instability mechanisms of coherent structures in stratified and rotating flows (elliptic, hyperbolic, helical centrifuge, inertial and zigzag instabilities). We consider how these instabilities may affect the mechanisms of vortices and waves in rotating stratified flows.

  3. Cascade processes in geophysical turbulence

  4. Having a clear insight on the energy cascade mechanism in relation with coherent structures in geophysical turbulence is very crucial to build well-defined and reliable turbulence models for the weather and climate forecast.

  5. Stirring, mixing and transport in geophysical flows

  6. Stirring and mixing are important in understanding the overall transport mechanisms in geo fluid dynamics as well as in engineering fluid dynamics. Transport of various geophysical quantities such as moisture, heat, salinity is a key ingredient for better prediction of atmosphere and ocean beyond the transport of energy and momentum for basic turbulence.

Keynote speakers: James Riley (University of Washington), David Dritschel (St. Andrews University), David Montgomery (Dartmouth College), Claude Cambon (Lyon), Geoffrey Spedding (University of Southern California), Joe Fernando (Arizona State University), Philip Marcus (University of California at Berkeley), Herman Clercx (Eindhoven University of Technology), Peter Bartello (McGill University), Erik Lindborg (KTH Mechanics), Michael McIntyre (University of Cambridge)

Support: Partial funding is confirmed or expected from:

  • Geophysical Turbulence Program of NCAR
  • NSF/USA
  • Ecole Polytechnique/France
  • JSPS/Japan