Climate & Fluid Physics

Nature of Project(s)

  • Laboratory fluid mechanics
  • Climate modelling
  • Ocean modelling
  • Theoretical fluid mechanics

Essential Background

Fundamentals of Climate System Science, Classical Mechanics, Fluids & Plasma, Computational Geosciences.

Background

The climate system acts to absorb heat, transport it around the globe and to radiate energy back to space. These simple processes manifest as complex climate and weather events, thanks to interacting dynamical processes. Our group focusses on researching the fluid mechanics and physics which produces such complexity, including modelling aspects of the climate system (either using computer simulations or in the laboratory), analysing historical climate/weather observations and predicting future trajectories. Projects in this group require background in physics, maths or computation, and a willingness to learn about the climate system.

Possible Future Research Avenues

  • High resolution modelling of Southern Ocean dynamics.
  • Internal waves in the ocean and atmosphere.
  • Ocean modeling using graphical processing units (GPUs).
  • Write your own climate model!
  • Interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere.
  • Turbulence, mixing and convection in a stratified fluid.
  • How does a body of water absorb longwave radiation?
  • Trends in Southern Hemisphere sea ice.