Physique de l'environnement et du climat
Geostrophic turbulence
Antoine Venaille, Corentin Herbert
Geostrophic turbulence refers to strongly rotating and stratified fluids such as the atmosphere or the oceans. These flows have the beautiful property to spontaneously self-organize into large scale coherent structures, and are known to be an important source of intrinsic varability for the climate system. Our themes of research include jet dynamics, multi-stability, models of large scale circulation, loss of balance and vertical energy transfers. We tackle these questions using numerial simulations and a combination of various theoretical approaches, including statistical mechanics, kinetic theory and cascade phenomenology.
Polar Oceans
Louis-Alexandre Couston, Romain Volk, Sylvain Joubaud, Corentin Herbert
Our group is currently addressing multiple challenges related to the melting of icebergs, ice shelves and sea ice by polar oceans. We are developping the next generation of lab experiments on ice melting in salt water to unravel the dynamics of ice-ocean boundary layers. We are applying dynamical system theory to sub-ice oceans to understand the mechanisms controlling their tipping behavior. We are leveraging recent progress in machine learning to design low-cost emulators of sub-ice ocean evolution.