Flow and Climate

Geophysical flows in the atmosphere and oceans include rich dynamics across a wide range of scales, and their physical representation, interpretation, and characterization are essential elements for advancing the state of the science of climate modeling and weather forecasting. The physics of turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer and ocean mixed layer, convection and clouds, air-sea interactions, soil-plant-atmosphere system, and mesoscale circulations, are all but complex geophysical flows that present a challenge towards improved physics parameterization in low-resolution earth system models. These fluid dynamical systems may also result in emergent phenomena (e.g., chaos) that arise from sensitive dependence on initial and boundary conditions. Buoyancy effects stand out as another distinguishing and critical feature of geophysical flows. This special topic focuses on advances in the theory, modeling, simulation, and observations of the physics of atmospheric and oceanic flows that bridge the knowledge gap between fundamental aspects of geophysical fluid dynamics and weather/climate modeling.