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The performance of operational weather and climate models is severely limited by scales that are too small to be resolved by the numerical grids. Often, the approximate treatment (i.e. parameterization) of sub-gridscale processes is not strongly constrained by theory or observations.
I will argue that useful insights may be gained from laboratory experiments on rotating fluids. For example, the study of laboratory gravity waves can be used to guide gravity-wave drag parameterizations in the atmosphere; to estimate mixing rates in the deep ocean; and to motivate the need for stochastic parameterization. |
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