Sources: vulcan.wr.usgs.gov, geography.hunter.cuny.edu
Transcription
Sources: vulcan.wr.usgs.gov, geography.hunter.cuny.edu
Plumes in the environment Sources: vulcan.wr.usgs.gov, geography.hunter.cuny.edu, earthobservatory.nasa.gov Thursday, January 26, 2012 2010: a good year for plumes • Icelandic volcano, whose eruption caused havoc for the European airline industry • BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster of its kind in US history Thursday, January 26, 2012 Icelandic volcano Source: www.boston.com/thebigpicture Thursday, January 26, 2012 Icelandic volcano Ash cloud maps • Broad ash cloud spelled big trouble for European airlines Sources: www.guardian.co.uk, wikipedia Thursday, January 26, 2012 Icelandic volcano • Eruption released 250 million cubic meters of ash and particulate into the atmosphere • European airspace was essentially closed from April 15, 2010 till April 20, 2010, the largest disruption to European air travel since WWII • Immense local impact to agriculture, water and air quality, tourism, etc. Source: wikipedia Thursday, January 26, 2012 Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Source: www.boston.com/thebigpicture Thursday, January 26, 2012 Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Sources: wikipedia, www.boston.com/thebigpicture Thursday, January 26, 2012 Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico • Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers • The resulting oil-gushing seafloor well released approximately 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, a fragile ecological system that supports a significant fishing industry • Though LA was most severely affected, oil was found on beaches as far away as TX and FL • By June 17, 2010, over 220 lawsuits had been filed against BP, which will take years (decades?) to settle Source: wikipedia Thursday, January 26, 2012 Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Source: dailymail.co.uk Thursday, January 26, 2012 Plumes arise elsewhere too... • • Pollution from smokestacks Sewage outflows, etc. In all these examples, the flow is highly turbulent (possibly multiphase) and therefore difficult to model without lots of computer firepower. We* seek to parameterize this very complex flow so as to get insights into some very basic questions, including: (1) How does the volume flux vary as one moves away from the source, (2) How does the concentration of heat, particulate, pollutant, etc. vary as one moves way from the source? * Morton, Taylor, Turner, Baines, Worster, Huppert, Linden, Caulfield, Woods, Kaye, Hunt... Thursday, January 26, 2012 Summary • Resolving these questions gives critical information about a special, but industrially- and environmentally-relevant, category of mixing • As we shall see, dimensional and scaling analysis shall offer timely insights along the way Thursday, January 26, 2012 Icelandic volcano • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyuXr1VsDyo&feature=channel Thursday, January 26, 2012 Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rJH9xB7fk&feature=channel Thursday, January 26, 2012