The Fred Sanders Symposium

P1.14

An ODE Approach To Modelling Effect Of Coriolis Force On Hurricane Trajectories

Bharat Khushalani, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

Point vortices are often used in dynamical modelling of atmospheric flows and are known analogues for coherent vortices like hurricanes and tropical cyclones, gulf stream eddies and dipolar vortex structures representing jet streaks. Evolution of concentrated regions of vorticity on the surface of Earth requires consideration of effects of curvature and rotation on such a motion. Coriolis force can be superimposed on the equations of motion of n point vortices moving on a sphere. The resulting model incorporating the coriolis effect then causes the tropical storm to curve to the north and then towards east and gives dynamical insight into the atmospheric problem using high-dimensional theory of differential equations. Inspite of such a simplified model using discretization of the flow into vortices, actual hurricane trajectories are reproduced fairly accurately and will be presented in this paper.

Poster Session 1, General Poster Session (Hall 4AB)
Monday, 12 January 2004, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM, Hall 4AB

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