Invited Speaker

Abstract: In this talk, I will present the development and validation of a new multiscale modelling framework for the multidimensional coupled system describing soil moisture and heat interactions in a shallow soil profile, capable of predicting upscaled soil-hydrological fluxes under different hydro-climate conditions. The targeted problem is of practical interest as accurate assessments of spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture and infiltration/evaporation fluxes are critical for many environmental and hydroclimatic applications.

Currently, existing models are limited to solving this highly nonlinear water and vapor phases, without addressing the various spatial and temporal scales involved. Moreover, when multiscale phenomena are considered in such systems, the high computational cost for such calculations are infeasible to consider. This new multidimensional multiscale coupled system and its respective upscaled, and low computational cost version, use air temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation as parameters to determine the boundary conditions, through the upscaled energy balance equation. This formulation makes it more realistic and ready for coupling with atmosphere processes. The accuracy of this new upscaled formulation has been demonstrated by comparing with both, the fine-scale model and with field data. Thus, the proposed system presents the mathematical and physical based tools to better predict a key boundary condition concerning the evaporation (and water) budget to be used into local and large-scale global climate modelling efforts to better quantify the change of the climate, its forecast and its impact.

Biography: Rosangela F. Sviercoski has a degree in Mathematics from UEPG (Brazil), a master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Brasília (UnB-Brazil) and a PhD in Applied Mathematics with minor in Hydrology from the University of Arizona - (UA-USA). She has worked as post-doctorate in the Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences (SWES-UA), as a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL-USA), and at the Department of Mathematics at Texas A&M (TAMU-USA), with a grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has also been a visiting scientist in the European Union as Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow (IIF), at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS-BG). Currently, she is a visiting Professor at the Mathematics Department at Oakland University - (USA) and an associate scientist (on leave) from BAS. In addition to research in mathematics, she has also developed project with an innovative contribution to teaching mathematics under an applied perspective, which has led to publishing the textbook of Mathematics Applied to Agricultural Engineering - Data Analysis and Models (UFV/CNPq/CAPES), where the subjects of Calculus, Linear Algebra and Analytical Geometry are presented through applications in Agriculture Engineering using real data and modelling. Her current research areas include, information technology, mathematical models for problems of multiple scales using analytical and theorical homogenization techniques, generalized Laplace equation and its analytical approximation, effective coefficient, numerical methods using multiscale and multigrid with applications in linear and nonlinear diffusion equations and elasticity systems.