Welcome to the GEOS 498, Introduction to Environmental Fluid Mechanics, webpage for the Fall 2017 semester.


Above: 9 of the 11 students (plus the instructor) of the course. Photo by Jaydie Lee.

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Meeting dates:

Mon., 21 Aug., Review syllabus. Begin review of the ordinary derivative, tangent line, slope, etc.
Wed., 23 Aug., Review vectors, introduce partial derivatives, and general concept of finite difference.
Fri., 25 Aug., Gradients, vector fields, scalar fields, shear, Continuum hypothesis.
Mon., 28 Aug., Review of last weeks vocabulary. Stress and strain. Fourier's law of conduction.
Wed., 30 Aug., Fick's law; Newton's law of viscosity.
Fri., 1 Sept., Quiz #1. Then continue with Newton's law of viscosity.
Mon., 4 Sept., Labor Day. Campus closed.
Wed., 6 Sept., Review of new vocabulary. Then Newton's second law, and body and surface forces.
Fri., 8 Sept., Deriving the surface forces that control accerelation.
Mon., 11 Sept., Quiz #2. Handouts: On the Road to Navier-Stokes... Cauchy stress tensor. Inner and outer products.
Wed., 13 Sept., Taking partial derivatives of stress terms in east-west eqn. of motion.
Fri., 15 Sept., Last day to add or drop. Complete derivation of Euler's equation.
Mon., 18 Sept., Begin Lagrangian and Eulerian descriptions. Total derivative. Local and advective terms. Homework #1 due.
Wed., 20 Sept., Homework #2 due. Review Lagrangian and Eulerian, total derivative, local and advective terms.
Fri., 22 Sept., Discussion on concavity and second derivatives for better understanding of how diffusion of momentum terms work.
Mon., 25 Sept., Homework #1 revision due. Quiz #3. Begin gravity.
Wed., 27 Sept., Class canceled.
Fri., 29 Sept., Continue inclusion of gravity in Navier-Stokes.
Mon., 2 Oct., Class canceled.
Wed., 4 Oct., Discussion of true gravity, centrifugal force, and apparent gravity.
Fri., 6 Oct., Cross-product and determinants.
Mon., 9 Oct., Apparent accelerations due to a rotating (non-intertial) reference frame.
Wed., 11 Oct., Derive the Coriolis (and centrifugal terms).
Fri., 13 Oct., Continue with Coriolis and curvature terms.
Mon., 16 Oct., Begin scale analysis.
Wed., 18 Oct., Quiz #4. Scale analysis for geostrophic and hydrostatic balance in the atmosphere.
Fri., 20 Oct., Derive hydrostatic balance, hypsometric eqn.
Mon., 23 Oct., Pressure and density in the atmosphere and ocean; Kolmogorov microscale.
Wed., 25 Oct., Characteristics of turbulence. Begin Reynolds decomposition: mean and perturbations.
Fri., 27 Oct., Continue discussion of turbulence as a transport mechanism requiring a statistical treatment.
Mon., 30 Oct., Quiz #5. Variance and covariance. Turbulent kinetic energy.
Wed., 1 Nov., Introduce index notation.
Fri., 3 Nov., Begin derivation of Reynolds stress term.
Mon., 6 Nov., Complete derivation of Reynolds stress term.
Wed., 8 Nov., Discussion of Reynolds stress, direct numerical simulation (DNS), large eddy simulation (LES). Begin vorticity.
Fri., 10 Nov., Veterans Day. Campus closed.
Mon., 13 Nov., Quiz #6. How to calculate vorticity. Then, Reynolds number.
Wed., 15 Nov., Uniform density versus stably stratified fluids, buoyancy force, and gravity waves (surface and internal waves).
Fri., 17 Nov., Continue discussion of stably stratified fluids, waves, and Richardson number.
Mon., 20 Nov., Thanksgiving holiday. No classes.
Wed., 22 Nov., Thanksgiving holiday. No classes.
Fri., 24 Nov., Thanksgiving holiday. No classes.
Mon., 27 Nov., Presentations from Cab (Subsurface ground water - saturated) and Jared (Tornadoes)
Wed., 29 Nov., Presentation from Kyle (Exchange of momentum amongst the inner Earth layers)
Fri., 1 Dec., Presentations from Jillian (Mesoscale eddies) and Evan (Subsurface ground water - unsaturated)
Mon., 4 Dec., Presentations from John (Hydraulic jumps) and Jose (Blood flow)
Wed., 6 Dec., Presentations from Maison (Glaciers) and Brooke (Water and nutrient flow in trees)
Fri., 8 Dec., Presentations from McKenna (Dead zones) and Nathan (Gravity currents)
Mon., 11 - 15 Dec., Final exam week.

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