Investigations of the Geodynamo

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Bloxham EAR -0073988 Investigations of the geodynamo process that is responsible for generation of the Earth's magnetic field are proposed. The following areas will be addressed: 1. Investigation of the basic underlying mechanisms of magnetic field generation in recent numerical models of the geodynamo. 2. Investigation of the parameter regime of numerical dynamo models, seeking in particular to further our understanding of the role of inertial and viscous effects on the geodynamo. 3. Investigation of thermal core-mantle interactions and their role in controlling the morphology of the main field and its secular variation. 4. Investigation of the effect of inner core gravitational coupling on the geodynamo. 5. Analysis of features observed in maps of the magnetic at the core-mantle boundary using a numerical dynamo model. 6. Analysis of the frozen-flux approximation. 7. Dynamo code development, including development of a distributed memory version of the code suitable for running on a network of Intel x86 based machines, and initial development of a community dynamo model.