event
Monday 15 Oct 2018: Eye formation in large scale vortices: from tropical cyclones to mathematical models
Prof. Emmanuel Dormy - ENS, Paris
H103 14:30-16:30
Tropical Cyclones are among the most devastating natural disasters and certainly the most energetic structures in the atmosphere. They present a large number of fascinating and unresolved issues that have received surprisingly little attention from fluid dynamicists. They are however localised non-linear structures for which reduced models can prove very valuable. We will investigate, using a simplified axisymmetric Boussinesq model, a very natural question: why do hurricanes have an eye? Using this model, we will establish scaling laws for the flow and map out the conditions under which an eye will, or will not, form.