Upwelling occurs along the west coasts of continents. In it, buoyancy, rotation, stratification, topography, and surface forcing are all significant. When the coastal wind is toward the equator and strong enough, the earth's rotation draws surface water away from the coastline. The thermocline near the coast is thus elevated and intersects the ocean surface to form a surface density front and a cold water anomaly. Strong and recurrent coastal upwelling occur off the west coasts of the United States, Peru, Northwestern Africa, and Western Australia. On the West Coast of the United States, upwelling occurs mainly in spring and summer and is the cause of heavy fog in San Francisco.

Upwelling is responsible for a large fraction of the mixing in the ocean and is thus important to biological productivity. The main purpose of my research is using large eddy simulation to provide understanding of the physics of upwelling. On the other hand, numerical simulations do not agree with measurements in upwelling or many other geophysical flows. Data assimilation can improve the accuracy of such simulations. The objectives of my research are thus twofold. I will investigate the physics of upwelling and devise assimilation techniques for improving forecasting skill.