Elbe – Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching

I see a new hashtag in my future #oceanographyofpuddleswithreflectionsofElbphilharmonie

mglessmer — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 19:07:56 +0000

There is a theme these days: one of Hamburg’s most famous sights, the concert hall called Elbphilharmonie. And not only is it a pretty impressive buildings, it’s located right at the port of Hamburg, and, more importantly, right across from my new work place! Yesterday morning there was a lot of ice on the puddle […]

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Here is to new beginnings!

mglessmer — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 16:23:14 +0000

From dawn til dusk (which wasn’t actually as long a time as it sounds ;-)), first day in my new job as programme manager of the citizen science project on biodiversity “GEO-Tag der Natur“. I am looking forward to great views on the way to and from work! And I am suuuper excited to be […]

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Let’s guess tides!

mglessmer — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 20:28:48 +0000

Actually, there is no need to guess. If you tilt your head 45 degrees to the left, you are looking at Hamburg the way it would be shown on a map, North up. The Elbe river, which you see in the foreground, flows east-to-west into the North Sea. And now there are at least two […]

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Learning about tides from art moored in a river

mglessmer — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 11:03:27 +0000

Disclaimer: This post might well be called “fun with tides” similar to Sheldon Cooper’s “fun with flags” — it is super nerdy, but at least I am having fun! There is some really cool art around Hamburg, and the one I want to talk about today is called “four men on buoys” by Stephan Balkenhol: […]

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Observing hydrodynamics on a very large scale

mglessmer — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 11:09:34 +0000

You know I like to point out where you can spot hydrodynamics concepts in your everyday lives (at least if your everyday lives include strolls along rivers and generally a lot of water) A while back we went to Geesthacht. We were hoping for more ice on the Elbe river, but sadly there was none. […]

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Reading ice on a river as tracer for flow fields

mglessmer — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 11:44:07 +0000

For most of my readers it might be pretty obvious what the movement of floating ice says about the flow field “below”, but most “normal” people would probably not even notice that there is something to see. So I want to present a couple of pictures and observations today to help you talk to the people around […]

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Shear flow

mglessmer — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 09:20:14 +0000

Another early morning crossing this bridge. And the current and the sun glint were perfect for this kind of photos:They almost look like schlieren photography images in those super old papers, don’t they? And I find it extremely fascinating how you can see the boundary layer between the flow and the stagnant water, and how wind […]

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Refraction of waves

mglessmer — Fri, 22 May 2015 09:51:44 +0000

I remember being on a looooong walk on some Danish dike when my sister was small and really didn’t want to walk any more, telling her about how phase velocity of shallow water waves depended on water depth and how you could observe that when waves are refracted towards the coast (assuming the sea floor has the […]

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Waves radiating from an object

mglessmer — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:52:46 +0000

In the last post, I showed you flow separation on a pylon in Elbe river. Remember? Today, we are back at the same pylon, only that this time the tidal current is a lot less strong, but there is a lot of wind, so our focus is on wind-generated waves. It might be admittedly a […]

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Flow separation

mglessmer — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 10:49:52 +0000

On the way to the pool I cross over the Elbe river on this pretty bridge. Which is pretty spectacular, just because the structure itself is so amazing. But what is even more spectacular is how every time I am there I see new things in the flow field. And the example I want to […]

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