Internal Waves Symposium

Det norske og det skotske vitenskapsakademi inngikk en samarbeidsavtale i 2005, og dette symposiet er kommet i stand som et resultat av dette.

Introduction

There is high level research activity and common research interest in the topic of INTERNAL WAVES in universities in Norway and Scotland, as well as existing embryonic collaborations on the subject between research groups in the two countries. This specialist symposium is organised under the auspices of the agreement signed in 2005 between the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA) and The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) to promote increased collaboration between the two national academies and the research communities in their respective countries. A follow-up symposium is planned in Scotland 2010 to review collaborative research progress in the intervening period and to enhance sustainable collaborations in future years.

Internal waves in the ocean are studied by scientists in applied mathematics, physics, engineering and earth sciences. The knowledge is of direct industrial relevance to offshore engineering operations in UK and Norwegian waters, to ocean circulation studies, and in the more general context, to climate research. In the open sea, the waves carry large amounts of energy and, in some circumstances, the hydrodynamic loading that they impose on offshore exploration and production platforms is much higher than that due to surface waves and currents. Commonly driven by the tide and wind, internal waves are generated on interfaces in stratified fluids and they occur ubiquitously in fjords, sea lochs, lakes, reservoirs and open sea conditions. Their behaviour influences the exchange and distribution of nutrients, pollutants and sediments and the transport of mass and energy, with the result that they are affect significantly the environmental health and ecology of all of these water bodies.

The main aims of the Symposium will be (i) to expose the present scope of research activity relating to internal waves in the individual countries, (ii) to provide advanced knowledge to Norwegian and Scottish graduate students working in this area, (iii) to explore in detail the initiation of new bi- or multi-lateral collaborative research projects involving Norwegian and Scottish scientists in this area and the extension and strengthening of existing cross-national collaborations of this kind, (iv) to identify fundamental, applied and industrial research problems with internal waves that are relevant in Norway and Scotland as well as internationally and (v) to promote the appropriate transfer of academic research advances to the industrial (offshore) sector.