Mass balance analysis of ice sheets is a key component to understand the effects of global warming. A significant component of ice sheet and shelf mass balance is iceberg calving, which can generate large tsunamis endangering human beings and coastal infrastructure. Such iceberg-tsunamis have reached amplitudes of 50 m and destroyed harbours. Calving icebergs interact with the surrounding water through different mechanisms and we investigate five; A: capsizing, B: gravity-dominated fall, C: buoyancy-dominated fall, D: gravity-dominated overturning and E: buoyancy-dominated overturning. Gravity-dominated icebergs essentially fall into the water body whereas buoyancy-dominated icebergs rise to the water surface. We find with unique large-scale laboratory experiments that iceberg-tsunami heights from gravity-dominated mechanisms (B and D) are roughly an order of magnitude larger than from A, C and E. A theoretical model for released iceberg energy supports this finding and the measured wave periods upscaled to Greenlandic outlet glaciers agree with field observations. Whilst existing empirical equations for landslide-tsunamis establish estimates of an upper envelope of the maximum iceberg-tsunami heights, they fail to capture the physics of most iceberg-tsunami mechanisms.

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Background. The high swimming velocities of some aquatic animals such as dolphins continue to attract great interest of researchers. The friction drag of the dolphin, estimated with the use of turbulent friction coefficient of the flat plate, was so high to declare that the dolphin should not be able to swim as fast as it does with the muscle power it possesses. Some previous tests of the rigid bodies, similar to the animal shapes, and gliding dolphins revealed the attached flow patterns. Nevertheless, the researchers connected with industrial applications believe that separation is inevitable on every smooth shape, provided no active boundary-layer control methods (e.g., suction) are applied. Objective. The aim of the paper is to test a special shaped rigid body of revolution in the wind tunnel in order to show that the boundary-layer separation can be removed without any active flow control methods. Methods. Wind tunnel tests were carried out at velocities 15, 35, and 55 m/s. Static pressure measurements and the oil-flow visualization were used. For this study, we take the UA-2 special shaped model of 200 mm length and 56.78 mm of the maximum diameter. The closed version of the UA-2c model is similar to the dolphin body. The tests were carried out in the subsonic wind tunnel MUB of the Institut für Strömungsmechanik (ISM) at Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. The wind tunnel MUB of ISM is an actively cooled Goettingen type tunnel with a square section of 1.3 m and the turbulence level of about 0.2 %. The technique of oil-flow visualization was used to deliver information of the surface near flow. The color used is a mixture of thin mineral oil and petrol, in an optimized ratio. The very fine titan-dioxide particles and UV-light reactive polymer particles in the color deliver a high contrast picture of the flow directions with a high spatial resolution. Results. The distribution of the static pressure and the oil-flow visualization are presented at three angles of attack. The flow pattern at zero angle of attack is probably attached and laminar. Conclusions. Pressure measurements and the flow visualization on the special shaped body of revolution showed that it is probably possible to avoid separation in rather large range of the Reynolds numbers. Further experiments are necessary with the use of a visualization of the flow volume and hot-wire velocity probes to clarify the behavior of the boundary layer, its separation and laminar-to-turbulent transition characteristics.

Subaerial and underwater landslides, rock falls and glacier calvings can generate impulse waves in lakes, fjords and the open sea. Experiments with subaerial landslides have shown that, depending on the slide characteristics, different wave types (Stokes, cnoidal or bore-like waves) are generated. Each of these wave types shows different wave height decay with increasing distance from the impact position. Furthermore, in very shallow water, the first impulse wave shows characteristic properties of a solitary wave. The nonlinear Fourier transform based on the Korteweg–deVries equation (KdV-NLFT) is a frequency-domain analysis method that decomposes shallow-water free-surface data into nonlinear cnoidal waves instead of linear sinusoidal waves. This method explicitly identifies solitons as spectral components within the given data. In this study, we apply the KdV-NLFT for the very first time to available 2D and 3D landslide-test data. The objective of the nonlinear decomposition is to identify the hidden nonlinear spectral structure of the impulse waves, including solitons. Furthermore, we analyze the determined solitons at different downstream positions from the impact point with respect to soliton propagation and modification. Finally, we draw conclusions for the prediction of the expected landslide-generated downstream solitons in the far-field.