IUTAM Symposium on Developments in Geophysical Turbulence: Held at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, June 16-19, 1998 (Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications Book 58)

This symposium continues a long tradition for IUGGjIUTAM symposia going back to "Fundamental Problems in Thrbulence and their Relation to Geophysics" Marseille, 1961. The five topics that were emphasized were: turbulence modeling, statistics of small scales and coherent structures, con­ vective turbulence, stratified turbulence, and historical developments. The objective was to consider the ubiquitous nature of turbulence in a variety of geophysical problems and related flows. Some history of the contribu­ tions of NCAR and its alumni were discussed, including those of Jackson R Herring, who has been a central figure at NCAR since 1972. To the original topics we added rotation, which appeared in many places. This includes rotating stratified turbulence, rotating convective turbulence, horizontal rotation that appears in flows over terrain and the role of small­ scale vorticity in many flows. These complicated flows have recently begun to be simulated by several groups from around the world and this meeting provided them with an excellent forum for exchanging results, plus inter­ actions with those doing more fundamental work on rotating stratified and convective flows. New work on double diffusive convection was given in two presentations. The history of Large Eddy Simulations was presented and several new approaches to this field were given. This meeting also spawned some interesting interactions between observational side and how to inter­ pret the observations with modeling and simulations around the theme of particle dispersion in these flows. Front Matter....Pages i-vii A Brief History of the Geophysical Turbulence Program at NCAR....Pages 1-4 The Meteorological Development of Large Eddy Simulation....Pages 5-18 Developments in High-Rayleigh Number Convection....Pages 19-36 Direct Numerical Simulation of Particle Motion in Relation to Structures in the Convective Boundary Layer....Pages 37-50 Boundary Sources of Potential Vorticity in Geophysical Circulations....Pages 51-65 Three-Dimensional Initiation of Thermohaline Fingering....Pages 67-80 Aspects of Stratified Turbulence....Pages 81-92 Particle Dispersion and Vortex Formation in Rotating Stratified Turbulence....Pages 93-108 Structural Features of Breaking Waves in Stratified Flow Over Mountains....Pages 109-117 Vortex Persistence: A Recent Model for Stratified Entrainment and Its Application to Geophysical Flows....Pages 119-125 Formation of Tracer Gradients in Nearly Two-Dimensional Flows....Pages 127-141 Evolution of a Tracer Gradient in an Incompressible, Two-Dimensional Flow....Pages 143-150 Comments on “ Evolution of a Tracer Gradient in an Incompressible, Two-Dimensional Flow” by Harvey Segur....Pages 151-152 Analytical Models for Vertical Collapse and Instability in Stably Stratified Flows....Pages 153-177 Emergence of Circumpolar Vortex in Two Dimensional Turbulence on a Rotating Sphere....Pages 179-192 Direct Laboratory Simulations of 3D Vortex Structures in Stably Stratified Rotating Fluids....Pages 193-203 Statistics of Coherent Fine Scale Structure in Turbulent Mixing Layer....Pages 205-218 Structure and Dynamics of Small-Scale Turbulence in Stably Stratified Homogeneous Shear Flows....Pages 219-234 Spectral Eddy-Viscosity Based Les of Shear and Rotating Flows....Pages 235-252 Entrainment and Subgrid Lengthscales in Large-Eddy Simulations of Atmospheric Boundary-Layer Flows....Pages 253-269 Extending Lundgren’s Transformation to Construct Stretched Vortex Solutions of the 3D Navier-Stokes and Euler Equations....Pages 271-282 A One-Dimensional MHD Model of Solar Flares: Statistics or Physics?....Pages 283-292 Back Matter....Pages 293-297 Turbulence is ubiquitous in nature, playing a role in a variety of geophysical problems and related flows. Topics that will be emphasized in the proceedings of Developments of Geophysical Turbulence are: the physics and mathematics of turbulence, atmospheric and oceanic turbulence, and historical developments. This symposium continued a long tradition for such symposia going back to the IUGG/IUTAM Symposium `Fundamental Problems in Turbulence and their Relation to Geophysics', Marseilles, 1961. Contributions to this volume were selected for their suitability to make this volume supplemental reading for a graduate course or to introduce those working in the geophysical and meteorological sciences to recent developments in our understanding of turbulence. Held at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, June 16-19, 1998