CEEM Seminar: Prof. Rob Stoll, University of Utah
"Quick Environmental Simulation: Reduced Physics Modeling for Atmospheric Transport Processes in Complex Environmental Systems"
Abstract
The exchange of mass, momentum, and energy between the land surface and the lower atmosphere plays a critical role in a wide range of environmental systems. Understanding these fluxes and the link between atmospheric-wind flows and the heterogeneity of the land surface is critical towards making useful predictions for science and engineering applications. A wide range of modeling strategies exist to represent these processes from algebraic models based on theory and empirical evidence to high resolution three-dimensional (3D) simulations that represent the full physics and chemistry of the problem of interest. In this talk we will discuss a middle ground, Quick Environmental Simulation (QES) where semi-empirical models are combined with conservation of mass to represent 3D wind fields in complex environmental problems. Importantly, QES is constructed with efficiency as a focus so that it can be applied to practical problems. After a discussion of the QES system and how QES based models are generally created, three distinct example problems will be presented to demonstrate how we tackle specific problems and the utility of a system like QES. The three examples will be flow and pollutant dispersion in urban environments, dispersion of pathogens in agricultural systems, and the spread of wildfires in complex terrain.
Speaker Bio
Rob Stoll is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his B.Sc. from Johns Hopkins University in mechanical engineering and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in civil engineering. With his research team, Dr. Stoll studies transport processes in the lower atmosphere and how they impact and interact with the environment using experimental and numerical approaches. Current research focuses on how the transport of momentum, heat, and mass are altered by heterogeneities on the land surface at multiple spatial length scales. Applications include spread of airborne pathogens in agricultural systems, wildfire propagation in complex terrain, pollution dispersion in urban areas, and the inclusion of land surface heterogeneity in weather and climate models.
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