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Monday, March 19, 2007
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CNLS Conference Room (TA-3, Bldg 1690)

Colloquium

Generalized Quasi-geostrophy for Spatially Anisotropic Rotationally Constrained Flows: Non-Hydrostatic Flows

Keith Julien
University of Colorado

Large-scale geophysical flows often exhibit balanced motions that reflect an underlying reduced dynamic contained within the primitive equations. The identification of reduced equations that accurately capture these balanced motions can offer dramatic theoretical and computational advantages over the primitive equations and a greater understanding in probing large-scale flows. A classic example is provided by the quasigeostrophic equations for rotationally constrained flows where high-frequency, spatio-temporal, inertial-gravity waves are filtered.

In this talk closed reduced equations analogous to the QGE are derived in the extratropics for small Rossby numbers and vertical scales comparable to or much larger than horizontal scales. On these scales significant vertical motions are permitted an found to couple to balanced geostrophic dynamics. These equations are located by a systematic exploration of different aspect ratio, Froude numbers and bouyancy numbers. Results from numerical simulations will also be presented.

Host: Mark Petersen