Events

COFFIES is supporting the Heliophysics Big Year! NASA’s Heliophysics Big Year (HBY) is a global celebration of solar science and the Sun’s influence on Earth and the entire solar system. The HBY began in October 2023 with the annular eclipse and lasts until December 2024 with the PSP Perihelion! Each month of the big year has a particular outreach theme, which you can find listed in this article.

The theme for June is “Performance Art”!

We will preceed our science seminar with a solar-focused poetry reading!

Poetry Reading 11:00-11:10 am PDT

• Aimee Norton, Stanford University
• David Hassler, Kent State University

Seminar Abstract: Recent observations of Rossby waves and other more exotic forms of inertial oscillations in the Sun’s convection zone have kindled the hope that such waves might be used as a seismic probe of the Sun’s interior. Here we present a 3D numerical simulation in spherical geometry that models the Sun’s convection zone and upper radiative interior. This model features a wide variety of inertial oscillations, including both sectoral and tesseral equatorial Rossby waves, retrograde mixed inertial modes, prograde thermal Rossby waves, the recently observed high-frequency retrograde (HFR) vorticity modes, and what may be latitudinal overtones of these HFR modes. With this model, we demonstrate that sectoral and tesseral Rossby waves are ubiquitous within the radiative interior as well as within the convection zone. We suggest that there are two different Rossby-wave families in this simulation that live in different wave cavities: one in the radiative interior and one in the convection zone. Finally, we suggest that many of the retrograde inertial waves that appear in the convection zone, including the HFR modes, are in fact all related, being latitudinal overtones that are mixed modes with the prograde thermal Rossby waves.

Watch the recording.