Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

Kalman filtering techniques can be used to recursively feed observed data into physics based models for Geophysical Fluid Dynamics to accomplish adequate forecasting. The same techniques, however, can also be used to address the inverse problem: to assess the physical content of models by applying their simulated output to observed data. In this presentation we shall present and discuss a dedicated physics based model (under development) that aims at numerical simulation of the global terrestrial tides, with the specific aim of identification of future risk areas of storm surge flooding; we shall discuss physical mechanisms that are significant to the predictive power of the model. Among these, interestingly, is the generation of internal tides and waves. We shall show examples of observations of these and discuss their relevance, both in terms of interest to ocean science and as opportunities for further model verification and testing.

Biography

Ramses van der Toorn (MSc in Applied Physics from Delft University of Technology) completed his PhD (cum laude, Utrecht University, 1997), on research in geophysical fluid dynamics, carried out at the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. He has published and has been active (including teaching, and serving conference committees as well as the CMC international industrial standardization coalition) in semiconductor device physics and compact transistor modeling (from Philips Research Laboratories, and developing and hosting the world wide industrial standard Mextram from Delft University of Technology). In parallel he has continued publishing scientific work in geophysical fluid dynamics. He currently holds an Assistant Professor position, with a focus on research of applications of mathematics in geophysical fluid dynamics, at the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics.