U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Transport and Mixing in Rotating Stratified Geophysical Flows Using Spectral and Wavelet Numerical Methods

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

9910001 Nicolaenko This three-year award for U.S.-France collaboration in applied mathematics involves Basil Nicolaenko, Harindra Fernando, Alex Mahalov and a graduate student from Arizona State University, and Igor Mezic of the University of California at Santa Barbara. The French team is led by Marie Farge at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, France and includes French researchers from Grenoble, Cachan, and Lyon. The objective of the collaboration is the study of geophysical flows in fully developed turbulent regime by means of numerical simulations using adaptive pseudo-spectral and adaptive wavelet methods. Several numerical codes for different models in two to three spatial dimensions, with and without rotation, stratification and transport of passive and reactive scalars will be developed. This award represents the U.S. side of a joint proposal to the NSF and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). NSF will cover travel funds and living expenses of the U.S. investigators and graduate student. The CNRS will support the French researchers' visits to the United States. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. U.S. and French teams represent expertise in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, meteorology and chemistry. The project will advance understanding of code development for environmental flows that have applications in air pollution, ozone depletion (in Antarctic, for example), and have a role in inertio-gravity waves in the stratosphere.