Atmosphere Ocean Science Friday Seminar

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Local mean flow response to lee waves

Speaker: Cai Maitland-Davies, CAOS

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1314

Date: Friday, May 5, 2023, 4 p.m.

Synopsis:

Internal gravity waves generated by flow over topography (which include steady lee waves) are able to produce significant mean flow responses, which can for example be seen in the atmosphere's quasi-biennial oscillation. Zonal averaging over a periodic domain is well suited to studies of atmospheric lee waves, but is less so in the oceanic setting due to waves reflecting from the ocean's surface and propagating far downstream from their source. A local averaging operator is then necessary to study the mean response without worrying about these reflections. I will talk about steps towards finding a local mean flow response to lee waves, with attention given to differences in the Eulerian and Lagrangian averaging frameworks.