PHYSICAL MATHEMATICS SEMINAR



TITLE:			WAVE-GENERATED TRANSPORT

SPEAKER:		JUAN M. RESTREPO
			MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
			UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA



ABSTRACT:

Gravity waves are usually ignored when considering the dynamics of oceanic processes, which 
persist at time scales many times greater than the period of the waves. This is generally the case
in climate dynamics of oceanic and shelf scales, for example, as it is thought that the contribution, 
whatever that might be, should be small.  However, one aspect of these waves that persists over 
long time scales is the mean Lagrangian motion.  The best known aspect of this residual flow is the 
Stokes drift. Just how this residual current survives and interacts with the dynamics of the long-time 
processes, such as the basin-scale dynamics of the ocean on climatic scales will be described using 
a recently derived framework. It shows how the waves couple to the mean vorticity of the fluid and 
affects the advection of tracers possibly present in the flow.

Ocean climate dynamics and the dynamics of sediment transport will be used in this talk to present how
these are modified by the interaction of the waves and the currents. If time permits, we will also describe
how wave-generated transport is modified when noise is present.


TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2002
2:30 pm
Building 2, Room 338

Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM in Room 2-349

                        
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Mathematics
Cambridge, MA  02139