Turbulence in the Ocean and Atmosphere

As taught in: Spring 2006

Four images demonstrating examples of turbulent flows.

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.)

Instructors:

Prof. Glenn Flierl

Prof. Raffaele Ferrari

MIT Course Number:

12.820 / 12.822

Level:

Graduate

Course Features

Selected lecture notes
Assignments (no solutions)

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.