Thesis

The project is focused on the large-scale organization and the energy budget of idealized oceanic flows above random topography. We will first characterize the enhanced energy dissipation due to the topography and its impact on the transport properties of an idealized parcelle of Ocean. To wit, we will consider models of increasing complexity, from quasi-two-dimensional to fully three-dimensional. We will then turn to the large-scale spatial organization of the flow, building on recent progress regarding the application of statistical mechanics to such flows. A special effort will be devoted to adapting these tools to forced-dissipative flows.