Events Calendar

AME - Department Seminar

Speaker: Larry G. Redekopp, Professor in the Department of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California

Talk Title: Modeling the Internal Weather in Lakes

Abstract: This lecture will address issues pertaining to the modeling of the internal (subsurface) weather in enclosed, or semi-enclosed, basins under mid-summer conditions. An understanding of, and an ability to predict, the internal dynamics of stratified lakes is central to the management of many water resources, particularly the quality of potable and recreational resources. The internal bio-geochemical quality of a lake depends crucially on the hydrodynamic processes whereby energy input at the basin scale via solar insolation and surface wind stresses is transferred down to mixing and dissipation scales. It is important to build tools that model the internal weather in closed basins with reasonable fidelity for purposes of both gaining a general qualitative understanding of lake hydrodynamics and for providing quantitative estimates of space-time scales for energy transfer routes and particulate transport paths.

The lecture will address several 'rapid-simulation' models relevant to small and moderate sized, stratified lakes in which an evolving, energetic, internal wave field is excited by surface wind events. Models of the degeneration of the wind-driven, basin-scale, internal seiche into a field of bi-directional, propagating internal waves for several lake configurations will be discussed, including the role of the evolving internal wave field in both the stimulation of benthic boundary eruptions and the dispersion of toxic spills in a moderately-sized lake.

More Info: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/1-30-13-redekopp.shtml

Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - Room 150

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy

Event Link: http://ae-www.usc.edu/seminars/1-30-13-redekopp.shtml