"Fluid Mechanics Tour des Alpes" : Prof. Colm-Cille Caulfield (Cambridge, UK) Stratified Turbulence: Climate’s Mysterious Mixer
Event details
| Date | 10.04.2025 |
| Hour | 13:15 › 14:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Colm-cille P. Caulfield, DAMTP & IEEF, University of Cambridge |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Abstract:
Statically stable density stratification is ubiquitous in geophysical flows, and due to the buoyancy force, such statically stable density distributions typically suppress vertical motions. Such inevitable anisotropy complicates even further developing an understanding of stratified turbulence. This is not `just’ an interesting research challenge in classical physics, since stratified turbulence actually plays a leading order role in the transport of heat and other scalars (such as carbon dioxide) in the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Indeed, stratified turbulent mixing is a central (and still highly controversial) component of the (rapidly changing) global climate system. In this talk, I will review some recent studies by my collaborators that have advanced our understanding of various key properties of stratified turbulence and mixing, while also demonstrating that there is still much more to learn about this fascinating and vitally important class of fluid flows.
Biography:
Colm-cille P. Caulfield is Professor of Environmental and Industrial Fluid Dynamics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge, and a faculty member of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF). He is also a Professorial Fellow in Mathematics at Churchill College, Cambridge. He is the co-chair of the Cambridge Centre for Data-Driven Discovery, the University’s Inter-disciplinary Research Centre (IRC) which brings together researchers and expertise from across the academic departments and industry to drive research into the analysis, understanding and use of data science and AI. He is also Co-Director (Science) of the University’s Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS), which studies and supports the role of software engineering, computer science, AI and data science within climate science. Prof. Caulfield’s personal research interests include instability, turbulence transition and turbulent mixing processes in stratified flows, with particular focus on understanding and improving the modelling of heat transport in the world’s oceans. Following postdoctoral training in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Department of Engineering Science at Hokkaido University, Japan, he was a lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol, UK. Prof. Caulfield subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Following tenure at UCSD, Prof. Caulfield joined the BP Institute (now IEEF) and DAMTP. Prof. Caulfield currently serves as the Head of DAMTP, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and the Chair of the Euromech Turbulence Conference Committee. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Fluid Dynamics) in 2014.
Statically stable density stratification is ubiquitous in geophysical flows, and due to the buoyancy force, such statically stable density distributions typically suppress vertical motions. Such inevitable anisotropy complicates even further developing an understanding of stratified turbulence. This is not `just’ an interesting research challenge in classical physics, since stratified turbulence actually plays a leading order role in the transport of heat and other scalars (such as carbon dioxide) in the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Indeed, stratified turbulent mixing is a central (and still highly controversial) component of the (rapidly changing) global climate system. In this talk, I will review some recent studies by my collaborators that have advanced our understanding of various key properties of stratified turbulence and mixing, while also demonstrating that there is still much more to learn about this fascinating and vitally important class of fluid flows.
Biography:
Colm-cille P. Caulfield is Professor of Environmental and Industrial Fluid Dynamics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge, and a faculty member of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF). He is also a Professorial Fellow in Mathematics at Churchill College, Cambridge. He is the co-chair of the Cambridge Centre for Data-Driven Discovery, the University’s Inter-disciplinary Research Centre (IRC) which brings together researchers and expertise from across the academic departments and industry to drive research into the analysis, understanding and use of data science and AI. He is also Co-Director (Science) of the University’s Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS), which studies and supports the role of software engineering, computer science, AI and data science within climate science. Prof. Caulfield’s personal research interests include instability, turbulence transition and turbulent mixing processes in stratified flows, with particular focus on understanding and improving the modelling of heat transport in the world’s oceans. Following postdoctoral training in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Department of Engineering Science at Hokkaido University, Japan, he was a lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol, UK. Prof. Caulfield subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Following tenure at UCSD, Prof. Caulfield joined the BP Institute (now IEEF) and DAMTP. Prof. Caulfield currently serves as the Head of DAMTP, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and the Chair of the Euromech Turbulence Conference Committee. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Fluid Dynamics) in 2014.
Practical information
- General public
- Free