Animations of geophysical phenomena

Direct or large-eddy simulations of phenomena such as the QBO or the MJO are greatly facilitated by the use of time-dependent coordinate transformations that incorporate the moving physical boundaries (without small-amplitude approximation) in the vertical (QBO) or in the meridional (MJO) directions, respectively.

Movies of the Plumb-McEwan laboratory experiment

• A short movie of the original experiment of Plumb and McEwan (J. Atmos. Sci. 1978) (~600Mb) can be made available via anonymous ftp, let me know if you are interested.
  
• Laboratory experiment at the University of Kyoto
  
  
• Direct numerical simulation of the Kyoto experiment (3D)
  
  
• Direct numerical simulation of the original experiment (with slightly 'imperfect' membrane) (3D)
  
  
• Direct numerical simulation of the original experiment (in cylindrical coordinates, work in progress) (3D)
  
  
• Animation of the zonal flow in the x-z-plane during a reversal
  
  
• Animation of the zonal mean zonal flow during a reversal
  
  
• Animation of the Reynolds-stress during a reversal
  
  
• Animation of the Richardson number during a reversal
  
  
• Animation of the horizontal wave-number against height during a reversal
  
  
• Animation of the horizontal and vertical wave-number during a reversal
  

Movies of the MJO (or not ... )

• ERA40-animation of the 20-day averaged streamfunction (at 200hPa) in the subtropics during an MJO event
  
  
• Climate-simulation of the 20-day averaged streamfunction (at 200hPa) in the subtropics during an MJO event (notice the missing variability)


• Presentation at the EGU 2011 (including animation snap-shots) of a large-eddy simulation of an MJO laboratory analogue driven by time-dependent meridional boundary meanders, i.e. convection organised by larger-scale "lateral" forcing in a "virtual" tank experiment.