Mesoscale Synoptic Coherent Structures In Geophysical Turbulence

The 20th Liège Colloquium was particularly well attended and these proceedings demonstrate the significant progress achieved in understanding, modelling, and observing geostrophic and near-geostrophic turbulence. The book contains more than 50 review papers and original contributions covering most aspects of the field of mesoscale/synoptic coherent structures in geophysical (oceanographic) turbulence. The properties of isolated vortices (generation, evolution, decay), their interactions with other vortices, with larger scale currents and/or with topography are investigated theoretically and by means of numerical and physical models. Observation of these dynamically important features in different parts of the world ocean are reported. Of particular interest will be the fourteen contributions by scientists from the USSR which emphasize the international character of the meeting. The book thus constitutes a useful and complete overview of the current state-of-the-art.

This book can be looked upon in more ways than one. On the one hand, it describes strikingly interesting and lucid hydrodynamic experiments done in the style of the "good old days" when the physicist needed little more than a piece of string and some sealing wax. On the other hand, it demonstrates how a profound physical analogy can help to get a synoptic view on a broad range of nonlinear phenomena involving self-organization of vortical structures in planetary atmo spheres and oceans, in galaxies and in plasmas. In particular, this approach has elucidated the nature and the mechanism of such grand phenomena as the Great of galaxies. A number of our Red Spot vortex on Jupiter and the spiral arms predictions concerning the dynamics of spiral galaxies are now being confirmed by astronomical observations stimulated by our experiments. This book is based on the material most of which was accumulated during 1981-88 in close cooperation with our colleagues, experimenters from the Plasma Physics Department of the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute (S. V. Antipov, A. S. Trubnikov, AYu. Rylov, AV. Khutoretsky) and astrophysics theoreticians from the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AM. Frid man) and from the Volgograd State University (AG. Morozov). To all of them we wish to express our gratitude. Whenever we speak of "our experiments", the participation of the entire team is implied.

This book offers a unique multidisciplinary integration of the physics of turbulence and remote sensing technology. Remote Sensing of Turbulence provides a new vision on the research of turbulence and summarizes the current and future challenges of monitoring turbulence remotely. The book emphasizes sophisticated geophysical applications, detection, and recognition of complex turbulent flows in oceans and the atmosphere. Through several techniques based on microwave and optical/IR observations, the text explores the technological capabilities and tools for the detection of turbulence, their signatures, and variability. FEATURES Covers the fundamental aspects of turbulence problems with a broad geophysical scope for a wide audience of readers Provides a complete description of remote-sensing capabilities for observing turbulence in the earth’s environment Establishes the state-of-the-art remote-sensing techniques and methods of data analysis for turbulence detection Investigates and evaluates turbulence detection signatures, their properties, and variability Provides cutting-edge remote-sensing applications for space-based monitoring and forecasts of turbulence in oceans and the atmosphere This book is a great resource for applied physicists, the professional remote sensing community, ecologists, geophysicists, and earth scientists.

Most well known structures in planetary atmospheres and the Earth’s oceans are jets or fronts interacting with vortices on a wide range of scales. The transition from one state to another, such as in unbalanced or adjustment flows, involves the generation of waves as well as the interaction of coherent structures with these waves. This book presents a fluid mechanics perspective to the dynamics of fronts and vortices and their interaction with waves in geophysical flows. It provides a basic physical background for modeling coherent structures in a geophysical context, and it gives essential information on advanced topics such as spontaneous wave emission and wavemomentum transfer in geophysical flows. Based on a set of lectures by leading specialists, this text is targeted at graduate students, researchers and engineers in geophysics and environmental fluid mechanics.

This book presents an extensive analysis of the dynamics of discrete and distributed baroclinic vortices in a multi-layer fluid that characterizes the main features of the large and mesoscales dynamics of the atmosphere and the ocean. It widely covers the case of hetonic situations as well as the case of intrathermocline vortices that are familiar in oceanographic and of recognized importance for heat and mass transfers. Extensive typology of such baroclinic eddies is made and analysed with the help of theoretical development and numerical computations. As a whole it gives an overview and synthesis of all the many situations that can be encountered based on the long history of the theory of vortex motion and on many new situations. It gives a renewed insight on the extraordinary richness of vortex dynamics and open the way for new theoretical, observational and experimental advances. This volume is of interest to experts in physical oceanography, meteorology, hydrodynamics, dynamic systems, involved in theoretical, experimental and applied research and lecturers, post-graduate students, and students in these fields.

Based on the research findings of 60 years, the author describes the origins of the Agulhas Current, its behaviour, its influence on the adjacent continental shelf, its effect on local weather and its role in linking the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The text is well-illustrated and includes asides on the history of research on the Current. An exhaustive bibliography gives easy access to present knowledge on this important current system.