The physics of star-forming clouds and the urban e...(/A. COMPUTING ATMOSPHERIC WINDS A...)

COMPUTING ATMOSPHERIC WINDS
Atmospheric winds are highly complex and difficult to predict accurately, especially in the part where humans live, the "atmospheric boundary layer" adjacent to the earth's surface. To predict the winds at the highest levels of detail requires the largest computers and a numerical approach called "large-eddy simulation," or LES. However since the first LES was done nearly two decades ago, it has been found that the simulation goes badly wrong in the first 200 meters above the surface in some fundamental way that has defied understanding. James Brasseur (Penn State University) will present recent research that appears to explain much of the underlying reasons for the errors, and he will discuss a "framework" in which LES can be developed to improve the LES process of atmospheric modeling.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD08/Event/91472.

COMBUSTION WAVE TRANSITION -- LAMINAR TO TURBULENT FLAMES, AND THEN TO DETONATION
When a detonation occurs, a combustion wave becomes strong and extremely powerful. In San Antonio, Elaine Oran (Naval Research Laboratory) will describe the processes of wave transition in which an initially small, laminar flame, as might be caused by a spark, can evolve into a turbulent flame that produces high compression and strong shock waves. The shocks, in turn, may couple with the flame to form unsteady, propagating shock-flame complexes that may transition to a detonation.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD08/Event/91470.

TURBULENT MIXING IN FUSION IMPLOSIONS
The phenomenon known as Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurs when a dense fluid rests on top of a light fluid in a gravitational field. It also occurs when a pressure gradient accelerates an interface between fluids of different density, such as in inertial
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