Computational Environmental Fluid Mechanics
The advent of parallel computing and the ready availability of efficient numerical schemes has lead to an explosion of applications of computational fluid mechanics to environmental flows. Stratification, buoyancy driven boundary layers, density currents, sediment transport, free surface flows, waves, bubble mixtures, clouds, ocean mixing, and turbulence are just a few of the environmental flows that have been attacked with modern computational methods. Often these numerical investigations are process studies that seek to isolate in a systematic manner the influence of various physical forcings and thereby identify critical flow parameters. The computational approach can be second-order closure, large-eddy simulation, or low Reynolds number direct numerical simulation. However, owing to the enormous range of scales no one numerical model can capture all the interacting scales of motion in a geophysical flow and invariably one must model small scales in the spectrum of motions. This then requires validation and guidance from laboratory measurements and field observations. In this session we seek numerical applications (and techniques) that connect disparate scales of motion and physical processes in the environment. For example coupling large and small turbulent scales, waves and turbulence, fluid mechanics and biology, turbulence and chemistry, interactions with topography and new closure ideas are sought.