Project: Coherent vortices in quasi-geostrophic two-dimensional turbulence
Supervisors: Pavel Berloff
Project Description:
Coherent vortices are persistent, isolated, and asymmetric structures observed in planetary atmospheres, with the Great Red Spot on Jupiter as an ideal example. On Earth, these vortices play a crucial role in flow circulation and act as major sources of instabilities and chaotic behaviour in weather and climate systems. Understanding their persistence characteristics and interactions is a longstanding challenge in turbulent fluid dynamics and has applications in climate modelling and in transport mechanisms in geophysical systems. My research focuses on analysing the persistence of these coherent structures and investigating the dynamics governing their interactions. Moreover, I aim to study how these vortices relate to the properties of quasi-geostrophic turbulence and influence large-scale geophysical flows. In a nutshell, my research uses numerical modelling and statistical theory of turbulence to advance our understanding of the behaviour of coherent vortices and their implications for both planetary and astrophysical fluid systems.
