Survey track-related courses

3T250 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics 3 ECTS
Lecturer:
Prof. GertJan van Heijst
Objectives
The student learns about the effects of background rotation and density stratification on
incompressible fluid flow. Specific goals are:
• to analyse complex flow phenomena by using the concept `potential vorticity’;
• to analyse basic dynamic balances and the role of viscous effects (Ekman
boundary layers);
• to gain understanding of basic mechanisms of varying kinds of wave phenomena
in rotating and/or stratified fluids;
• to analyse stability/instability of flows.
Contents
This course focusses on some basic features of the dynamics of large-scale geophysical
flows as met in oceans and planetary atmospheres, which are essentially affected by
background rotation and density stratification of the medium. Topics that are discussed:
geostrophic flow, conservation of potentical vorticity, Ekman boundary layers, spin-up,
wind-driven ocean circulation, Boussinesq approximation, waves in rotating and
stratified fluids, density currents, geostrophic adjustment, barotropic and baroclinic
instability, aspects of 2D turbulence ad dynamics of coherent vortex structures. A
laboratory course ‘geophysical fluid dynamics’ is organized with experimental and
computer sessions, in which students can investigate some dynamical features of rotating
and stratified flows in the laboratory and by numerical simulations.