Understanding the circulation of the Earth's ocean is a central problem of oceanography. In addition to its intrinsic scientific interest, the ocean circulation is a critical element of the physical environment that supports life on Earth, and plays a key role in the climate system. However, understanding the ocean's circulation is difficult because the ocean is a fluid that varies on spatial scales from more than 10,000 km to less than 1 mm. This range of 10 orders of magnitude in spatial scale is comparable to the ratio of the height of a human being to atomic or molecular dimensions. Thus, the mathematics that describes this complex, turbulent fluid is a set of nonlinear differential partial equations which are difficult to analyze because of the combination of nonlinearity and the many interacting scales of motion. In this study, scientists from Oregon State University will collaborate to exploit recent developments in mathematics to find new solutions to equations that describe the large-scale ocean circulation. These solutions will contribute fundamental information on the dynamics of the ocean and will stimulate other studies on the mathematics of turbulent fluids. A graduate student will be working on this problem at the intersection of mathematics and geoscience.
