Abstract
The earth’s oceans and atmosphere are full of large vortex structures. Their existence is
Mainly due to the twodimensional nature of the large-scale geophysical flows.
Two-dimensional turbulent flows are characterised by an ‘inverse energy cascade’, as
visible in the self-organisation of these flows: larger vortices and structures are
observed to emerge from initially random flow fields. Such vortices are weakly dissipative
and hence quite persistent.
In this lecture I will give an overview of a number of fascinating aspects of this type of
turbulent flows. Ample attention will be given to laboratory experiments on forced and
decaying quasi-two-dimensional turbulence, interaction between vortices, and vortices in
perturbed ambient flow fields.
In addition to the dynamical features, some aspects of (chaotic) tracer transport in such
flow systems will be highlighted.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
| Event | conference; Seminar at CICESE; 2009-12-02; 2009-12-02 - Duration: 2 Dec 2009 → 2 Dec 2009 |
Conference
| Conference | conference; Seminar at CICESE; 2009-12-02; 2009-12-02 |
|---|---|
| Period | 2/12/09 → 2/12/09 |
| Other | Seminar at CICESE |