ARCHER2 Calendar October 2023

Scattering of waves by turbulent vortices in geophysical fluids

Dr Hossein Kafiabad, School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh

When the waves travel in the atmosphere and ocean interior, they get scattered by the vortices leading to changes in their direction and wavelength. These changes are not random and can be quantified using mathematical tools developed for wave and fluid dynamics. The aim of this project was to theoretically find the statistics of waves (like their distribution in wavenumber space) shaped by their interactions with vortices and then compared them with the Direct Numerical Simulations of Boussinesq equations. Starting with a plane wave travelling through a fully developed turbulent background, we expect the wave to lose its preferred diction and develop small scale features. This figure shows a horizontal slice of this 3D flow for two fields: vertical vorticity of the background flow (bottom) and vertical velocity of the waves (top). The deformation of the initially plane wave is observed as result of its interaction with vortices.

This image was published on the October page of the ARCHER2 2023 printed calendar.