Physics of Lakes Volume 1: Foundation of the Mathematical and Physical Background

Abstract

It commences in the introduction with a general, word-only motivation by describing some striking phenomena, which characterise the motion of lake water on the surface, in the interior of lakes and then relate these motions to the density distribution. It lists a large number of lakes on the Earth and describes their morphology and the causes of their response to the driving environment. Because physics of lakes cannot be described without the language used in mathematics and only limited college knowledge calculus and classical NEWTONian physics is pre-assumed, these subjects are introduced first by using the most simple approach with utmost care and continuing with increasing complexity and elegance. This process leads to the presentation of the fundamental equations of lake hydrodynamics in the form of ‘primitive equations’ to a detailed treatment of angular momentum and vorticity. A chapter on linear water waves then opens the forum to the dynamics in water bodies with free surface. Stratification is the cause of large internal motions; this is demonstrated in a chapter discussing the role of the distribution of mass in bounded water bodies. Stratification is chiefly governed by the seasonal variation of the solar irradiation and its transformation by turbulence. The latter and the circulation dynamics are built on input of wind shear at the surface. The early theory of circulation dynamics with and without the effect of the rotation of the Earth rounds off this first book into the dynamics of lakes. A chapter on turbulence modelling and a further chapter collecting the phenomenological coefficients of water complete this book on the foundations of the mathematics and physics of lakes.