Parvathi Kooloth; Department of Mathematics; University of Madison, Wisconsin

Conservation principles for potential vorticity in moist atmosphere

One of the most important conservation laws in atmospheric and oceanic science is conservation of potential vorticity. The original derivation is approximately a century old, in the work of Rossby and Ertel, and it is related to the celebrated circulation theorems of Kelvin and Bjerknes. However, the laws apply to idealized fluids, and extensions to more realistic scenarios such as an atmosphere with moisture and phase changes have been problematic. In my talk, I'll describe a systematic approach based on Noether's theorem to arrive at the conservation principles for moist PV.