In a famous paper in oceanography, Anderson and Gill (1975, https://doi.org/10.1016/0011-7471(75)90046-7) considered how an idealized (box-like) ocean basin responds to changes in wind forcing. The authors suggested ocean adjustment was mediated by large-scale planetary ("Rossby") waves which sweep westward from the eastern boundary, altering the vertical structure of the flow. The work had considerable impact, prompting a range of important studies thereafter.
Significantly though, the Anderson and Gill model had a flat bottom and thus missed the interaction with bathymetry. Bottom slopes and bottom roughness have a profound impact on ocean currents and probably alter the ocean adjustment process. But how this happens is unknown.
In this project, we'll use a simplified ocean model built with the Dedalus Python package (Burns et al. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.023068, https://dedalus-project.org/) in a closed basin to study the adjustment to changes in wind forcing with different types of bathymetry.
The work will entail setting up and running the model with different configurations and then analyzing the results. Thus the student will gain experience with ocean dynamical theory and with using a modern and flexible framework for solving a wide variety of physical problems (see some examples here: https://vimeo.com/dedalus).
