Examples of turbulent flows at the surface of the sun, in the earth's atmosphere, in the Gulf Stream at the ocean surface, and in a volcanic eruption. (Images courtesy of
NASA,
NOAA and
USGS.)
Course Description
This course presents the phenomena, theory, and modeling of turbulence in the Earth's oceans and atmosphere. The scope ranges from centimeter to planetary scale motions. The regimes of turbulence include homogeneous isotropic three dimensional turbulence, convection, boundary layer turbulence, internal waves, two dimensional turbulence, quasi-geostrophic turbulence, and macrotrubulence in the ocean and atmosphere.