Their team, which includes 15 scientists from NCAR, the University of Colorado and the University of Minnesota, is using the CRAY C90 and T3D at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to examine large-scale turbulence and its role especially in general circulation models of global climate. McWilliams' research focuses on turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans and the outer planets. Turbulence, in essence, consists of irregular fluid motions that vary greatly over time. In a large-scale environment, turbulence and other forces, such as atmospheric pressure and weather fronts, influence each other. Yet, if you follow that logic and try to fit it into mathematical equations, you find that's a highly unstable flow.
Turbulence does something that changes the large-scale flow.
To make a correct climate model, you need to characterize the roles of these large-scale turbulent motions. Historically, mathematical physicists have believed turbulent movements were random and unstructured. As a result, they were unable to explain why Jupiter's Red Spot, a famous example of a long-lived turbulent vortex, has been around since Galileo's time. McWilliams believes that large-scale turbulence is inherently more structured than has been thought, and the results of his modeling at Pittsburgh support this view. This sequence, from McWilliams' simulation of planetary turbulence shows how the flow changes from random and disoriented to coherent, organized structure.