Event

The Department of Earth & Environmental Science

University of Pennsylvania

Invites you to attend a EES Seminar Series

Friday, March 29, 2024 - 3:00 PM

“Model Hierarchies for Fluid Process Modeling”

Fluid processes underly many phenomena in geophysics, from cloud feedbacks, to turbulent mixing, to wave dynamics. These small-scale processes can have large influences on large scales, and are typically parameterized in large-scale models. Here I will use a hierarchy of models of small-scale fluid dynamics to test different conceptional theories of the processes. I will apply this strategy to study wave-mean flow interactions, which are known to drive large-scale atmospheric winds in Earth (the quasi-biennial oscillation) as well as other planets. The different models are simulated using the Dedalus simulation code, which can solve nearly arbitrary partial differential equations using spectral methods. Testing different theories using this type of model hierarchy leads to a deeper understanding of the underlying processes, which can be used to develop robust parameterizations.

Dr. Daniel Lecoanet

Assistant Professor

McCormick School of Engineering

Northwestern University 

Daniel Lecoanet studies astrophysical and geophysical fluid dynamics, primarily using numerical simulations. He is a core developer of the Dedalus pseudo-spectral code. Daniel received his undergraduate degree at University of Wisconsin—Madison, a master’s degree at University of Cambridge, his PhD at University of California—Berkeley under Eliot Quataert, and was a Princeton Center for Theoretical Science and Lyman Spitzer Jr. postdoctoral fellow at Princeton before joining Northwestern University in 2020.