2009 program of studies : nonlinear waves

Abstract

The fiftieth year of the program was dedicated to Nonlinear Waves, a topic with many applications in geophysical fluid dynamics. The principal lectures were given jointly by Roger Grimshaw and Harvey Segur and between them they covered material drawn from fundamental theory, fluid experiments, asymptotics, and reaching all the way to detailed applications. These lectures set the scene for the rest of the summer, with subsequent daily lectures by staff and visitors on a wide range of topics in GFD. It was a challenge for the fellows and lecturers to provide a consistent set of lecture notes for such a wide-ranging lecture course, but not least due to the valiant efforts of Pascale Garaud, who coordinated the write-up and proof-read all the notes, we are very pleased with the final outcome contained in these pages. This year’s group of eleven international GFD fellows was as diverse as one could get in terms of gender, origin, and race, but all were unified in their desire to apply their fundamental knowledge of fluid dynamics to challenging problems in the real world. Their projects covered a huge range of physical topics and at the end of the summer each student presented his or her work in a one-hour lecture. As always, these projects are the heart of the research and education aspects of our summer study.