In recent decades, great progress has been made in our understanding of zonal jets across many subjects - atmospheric science, oceanography, planetary science, geophysical fluid dynamics, plasma physics, magnetohydrodynamics, turbulence theory - but communication between researchers from different fields has been weak or non-existent. Even the terminology in different fields may be so disparate that researchers working on similar problems do not understand each other. This comprehensive, multidisciplinary volume will break cross-disciplinary barriers and aid the advancement of the subject. It presents a state-of-the-art summary of all relevant branches of the physics of zonal jets, from the leading experts. The phenomena and concepts are introduced at a level accessible to beginning graduate students and researchers from different fields. The book also includes a very extensive bibliography.

Originally published in 1993, this book was the first to offer a comprehensive review of large eddy simulations (LES) - the history, state of the art, and promising directions for research. Among topics covered are fundamentals of LES; LES of incompressible, compressible, and reacting flows; LES of atmospheric, oceanic, and environmental flows; and LES and massivelt parallel computing. The book grew out of an international workshop that, for the first time, brought together leading researchers in engineering and geophysics to discuss developments and applications of LES models in their respective fields. It will be of value to anyone with an interest in turbulence modelling.