The multi-scale dust formation in substellar atmospheres

Substellar atmospheres are observed to be irregularly variable for which the formation of dust clouds is the most promising candidate explanation. The atmospheric gas is convectively unstable and, last but not least, colliding convective cells are seen as cause for a turbulent fluid field. Since dust formation depends on the local properties of the fluid, turbulence influences the dust formation process and may even allow the dust formation in an initially dust-hostile gas. A regime-wise investigation of dust forming substellar atmospheric situations reveals that the largest scales are determined by the interplay between gravitational settling and convective replenishment which results in a dust-stratified atmosphere. The regime of small scales is determined by the interaction of turbulent fluctuations. Resulting lane-like and curled dust distributions combine to larger and larger structures. We compile necessary criteria for a subgrid model in the frame of large scale simulations as result of our study on small scale turbulence in dust forming gases.Comment: 22 Pages, 5 Figures, to appear in "Analysis and Numerics of Conservation Laws", ed. G. Warnecke (Springer-Verlag

CRC 1114 - Report Membrane Deformation by N-BAR Proteins: Extraction of membrane geometry and protein diffusion characteristics from MD simulations

We describe simulations of Proteins and artificial pseudo-molecules interacting and shaping lipid bilayer membranes. We extract protein diffusion Parameters, membrane deformation profiles and the elastic properties of the used membrane models in preparation of calculations based on a large scale continuum model

On singular limits arising in the scale analysis of stratified fluid flows

We study the low Mach low Freude numbers limit in the compressible Navier-Stokes equations and the transport equation for evolution of an entropy variable -- the potential temperature $\Theta$. We consider the case of well-prepared initial data on "flat" tours and Reynolds number tending to infinity, and the case of ill-prepared data on an infinite slab. In both cases, we show that the weak solutions to the primitive system converge to the solution to the anelastic Navier-Stokes system and the transport equation for the second order variation of $\Theta$Comment: 25 page

Intensification of tilted atmospheric vortices by asymmetric diabatic heating

P\"aschke et al. (JFM, 701, 137--170 (2012)) studied the nonlinear dynamics of strongly tilted vortices subject to asymmetric diabatic heating by asymptotic methods. They found, i.a., that an azimuthal Fourier mode 1 heating pattern can intensify or attenuate such a vortex depending on the relative orientation of tilt and heating asymmetries. The theory originally addressed the gradient wind regime which, asymptotically speaking, corresponds to vortex Rossby numbers of order O(1) in the limit. Formally, this restricts the appicability of the theory to rather weak vortices in the near equatorial region. It is shown below that said theory is, in contrast, uniformly valid for vanishing Coriolis parameter and thus applicable to vortices up to hurricane strength. The paper's main contribution is a series of three-dimensional numerical simulations which fully support the analytical predictions.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure

Balanced data assimilation for highly-oscillatory mechanical systems

Data assimilation algorithms are used to estimate the states of a dynamical system using partial and noisy observations. The ensemble Kalman filter has become a popular data assimilation scheme due to its simplicity and robustness for a wide range of application areas. Nevertheless, the ensemble Kalman filter also has limitations due to its inherent Gaussian and linearity assumptions. These limitations can manifest themselves in dynamically inconsistent state estimates. We investigate this issue in this paper for highly oscillatory Hamiltonian systems with a dynamical behavior which satisfies certain balance relations. We first demonstrate that the standard ensemble Kalman filter can lead to estimates which do not satisfy those balance relations, ultimately leading to filter divergence. We also propose two remedies for this phenomenon in terms of blended time-stepping schemes and ensemble-based penalty methods. The effect of these modifications to the standard ensemble Kalman filter are discussed and demonstrated numerically for two model scenarios. First, we consider balanced motion for highly oscillatory Hamiltonian systems and, second, we investigate thermally embedded highly oscillatory Hamiltonian systems. The first scenario is relevant for applications from meteorology while the second scenario is relevant for applications of data assimilation to molecular dynamics

Global well-posedness for passively transported nonlinear moisture dynamics with phase changes

We study a moisture model for warm clouds that has been used by Klein and Majda as a basis for multiscale asymptotic expansions for deep convective phenomena. These moisture balance equations correspond to a bulk microphysics closure in the spirit of Kessler and of Grabowski and Smolarkiewicz, in which water is present in the gaseous state as water vapor and in the liquid phase as cloud water and rain water. It thereby contains closures for the phase changes condensation and evaporation, as well as the processes of autoconversion of cloud water into rainwater and the collection of cloud water by the falling rain droplets. Phase changes are associated with enormous amounts of latent heat and therefore provide a strong coupling to the thermodynamic equation. In this work we assume the velocity field to be given and prove rigorously the global existence and uniqueness of uniformly bounded solutions of the moisture model with viscosity, diffusion and heat conduction. To guarantee local well-posedness we first need to establish local existence results for linear parabolic equations, subject to the Robin boundary conditions on the cylindric type of domains under consideration. We then derive a priori estimates, for proving the maximum principle, using the Stampacchia method, as well as the iterative method by Alikakos to obtain uniform boundedness. The evaporation term is of power law type, with an exponent in general less or equal to one and therefore making the proof of uniqueness more challenging. However, these difficulties can be circumvented by introducing new unknowns, which satisfy the required cancellation and monotonicity properties in the source terms