Environmental Stratified Flows

✍ Scribed by Roger Grimshaw (auth.), Roger Grimshaw (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 285
• Series: Topics in Environmental Fluid Mechanics 3
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The dynamics of flows in density-stratified fluids has been and remains now an important topic for scientific enquiry. Such flows arise in many contexts, ranging from industrial settings to the oceanic and atmospheric environments. It is the latter topic which is the focus of this book. Both the ocean and atmosphere are characterised by the basic vertical density stratification, and this feature can affect the dynamics on all scales ranging from the micro-scale to the planetary scale. The aim of this book is to provide a “state-of-the-art” account of stratified flows as they are relevant to the ocean and atmosphere with a primary focus on meso-scale phenomena; that is, on phenomena whose time and space scales are such that the density stratification is a dominant effect, so that frictional and diffusive effects on the one hand and the effects of the earth’s rotation on the other hand can be regarded as of less importance. This in turn leads to an emphasis on internal waves.

✦ Table of Contents

Internal Solitary Waves....Pages 1-27
Internal Tide Transformation and Oceanic Internal Solitary Waves....Pages 29-60
Atmospheric Internal Solitary Waves....Pages 61-88
Gravity Currents....Pages 89-117
Stratified Flow Over Topography....Pages 119-159
Turbulence in Stratified Fluids....Pages 161-189
Laboratory Studies of Continuously Stratified Flows Past Obstacles....Pages 190-222
Elements of Instability Theory for Environmental Flows....Pages 223-281

✦ Subjects

Environmental Physics;Mechanics, Fluids, Thermodynamics;Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution;Oceanography