Hi all! I defended my Ph.D. thesis back in 2019 and I also served as the creator and moderator for the subreddit r/FluidMechanics for a long time. I think with that I have gathered enough experience and courage to answer some of your queries. Some broad topics that I can answer questions on are:
- computation fluid mechanics
- scientific programming and HPC
- nonlinear shallow water equations
- statistical description of turbulence: spectra, energy budget etc.
- experimental methods: PIV
- stratified turbulence
- academia
- navigating your career pre- and post-Ph.D.
Ask away!
There are two kinds of geophysical flow studies one can do. 2D simulations where you use models like shallow water equations. Then you deal with
- Velocity
- Reynolds number (which implies some viscosity)
- Froude number (or gravity)
- Rossby number (or Coriolis force from Earth’s rotation)
- Total energy (so you know when it is in a statistically steady state)
- Density only if you add many layer
- Boundary conditions (only if it matters, can be avoided)
You can also do a 3D simulation, but often we use the Boussinesq equations, in which density is approximated as a passive scalar.
This is only the setup, but there is a rich set of phenomena one can aim to simulate with.
So are you treating the Earth’s crust as a shallow fluid layer? Or the mantle underneath? I would think the mantle is too thick for shallow water equations.