Our understanding of climate and climate changes on time scales of years to centuries rests on the quantitative understanding of the behavior of the earth's oceans, atmosphere, and land surface including their ability to transport, store, and return to space the energy that earth receives from the sun. Research at Yale applies basic principles of physics, mathematics and chemistry to understanding these media, spanning a wide variety of observational, theoretical, and modeling strategies.

Geophysical fluid dynamics (GFD) and physical oceanography have long been core activities, including the theory of oceanic circulation, the dynamics of the upper ocean, Arctic oceanography, as well as double-diffusive convection, and interactions between sea ice formation and oceanic flows. Research on the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere currently focuses on mesoscale flows and mountain meteorology. Experimental studies are conducted in our renovated Fluid Dynamics Lab. Work in the department also includes the fluid dynamics of earth's interior.

Our work on sea ice is part of a broader effort to understand the physics of ice and its implications for the behavior of ice throughout the climate system, including mountain glaciers, ice sheets, and ice lofted in thunderstorms.

The ocean role in climate and large-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions are other important avenues of research. The current topics include El Niño, decadal and longer climate variabilit, and changes in oceanic thermal structure in response to global warming. To study these problems we use a hierarchy of models, from simple dynamical systems to complex general circulation models of the ocean and atmosphere.

Faculty here are also concerned with Earth's hydrological cycle on a global and regional basis.  This includes the physics and climatology of atmospheric water vapor, clouds, and precipitation.  One novel observational strategy is the combination of water isotope analysis with models of atmospheric transport.

In addition to theory and modeling, our group makes use of in-house equipment for isotopic analysis and laboratory studies studies of fluid mechanics.  Novel data analysis methods are used to detect climate signals in paleoclimate proxy and instrumental climate records.  Many remote sensing activities are concentrated in the Center for Earth Observation.

Faculty affiliated with this group include Mary-Louise Timmermans , Ron Smith, Karl Turekian,  George Veronis , Alexey Fedorov, and John Wettlaufer.  We also collaborate on paleoclimate modeling with faculty from Biogeochemistry, Paleoceanography, and Paleoclimate.


NEW:

A joint program between the Yale Geology/Geophysics and Astronomy departments to study the physical mechanisms common to the Sun and Earth that govern their changes over time. More information about this program can be found here, Solar and Terrestrial Physics (STP).


Information about: Fluid Dynamics Laboratory