OPBL Home Page

Welcome to the OPBL Laboratory Home Page

The long-term goal of the Oceanic Planetary Boundary Layer (OBPL) Laboratory at the Naval Postgraduate School is to understand the role of oceanic turbulent boundary layers in modifying physical and biogeochemical properties in the global oceans.

We are currently focusing on two major projects:

1. Simulation of Convection

   • The simulation of convection using a large-eddy simulation (LES) model (Click here for convection movie) in the polar and Mediterranean seas with the goal of developing parameterizations of this process for inclusion in primitive equation models for basin-to-global-scale circulation.

     Manuscript entitled "Thermobaric Convection" available here

   • Description of Labrador Sea project

   • Coastal ocean plumes. Click here to see a 26-day animation of a dense plume flowing from a source at the top of the continental shelf break. The slope is 1% downward toward the right, and the region depicted is 400 km on a side. Notice the 80-km wavelength in the breaking away secondary plumes. This scale is about 6 Rossby radii.

2. Tropical Ocean Mixed Layer System

   As part of the TOGA COARE (Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere - Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment), we are examining the response of the tropical and equatorial turbulent boundary layer system to unsteady atmospheric forcing on time scales of diurnal to annual.

In support of these projects, the OPBL Lab has developed a suite of numerical models:

Who Are We?

• Prof. Roland W. Garwood
• Ms. Arlene A. Guest
• Mr. Ramsey Harcourt
• LCDR Robert Edson
• Dr. Lin Jiang
• Bernard Arata
• Masters Students

Description of this home page in color Postscript (3.5MB)

Links:

• Introductory Tour of the World Wide Web
• Anzflux (Antarctic Zone Flux Experiment) Home Page
• Oceanography/Meteorology Departments' home page
• NPS Home Page
• VisLab Home Page
• Monterey Peninsula Home Page
• Here are some other interesting links around the Internet.

Excuse Our Mess...We're always under construction.

Please send all comments, complaints or suggestions to the author, Arlene Guest,

Enjoy!