Session FL - Rotating Flows.
ORAL session, Monday morning, November 25
Manchester, Wyndham Anatole Hotel
Large two-dimensional vortices are a common feature in rapidly rotating flows. In oceans and atmospheres, the formation and maintenance of these vortices are often driven by small-scale, three-dimensional motions. Numerical simulations and laboratory experiments have been performed to explore this transition from three to two-dimensional flow. In a rotating tank, a three-dimensional flow is driven by small turbulent jets located near the bottom boundary. When the system is under rapid rotation this turbulent flow transitions to a region dominated two-dimensional vortices aligned with the rotation axis. Typical vortices have Reynolds number of 1000 and Rossby number of 0.1. The dynamics of this transition region will be discussed and three-dimensional simulations will be compared to laboratory measurements.