First Place, 2016

Much like waves crashing on the beach, subsurface waves travel thousands of kilometers across the ocean till the 200-meter-tall waves reach the coastline where they steepen and break. These physicists' simulations investigate this breaking process, which produces a surge of cold salty water up the slope that has both oceanographic and ecological ramifications.

Credit:
Michael Allshouse, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, Department of Physics