Today's mental exercise

Seminar announcement
Vortex Formation in Horizontally Elliptical Thermal Bubbles in an Ambient Vertical Shear

Idealized inviscid numerical simulations have shown that in a quiescent, environment, a quadrapole of vertical vortices form within isolated horizontally elliptical thermal bubbles. New results are obtained by adding an ambient unidirectional vertical shear. The couplets are no longer necessarily of equal strength, as often one pair is stronger than the other for various bubble geometries and orientations with respect to the shear vector. The morphology of the updraft concentration within the thermal is implicated as a possible mechanism for the enhancement of the vertical vortex pairs.

I know, I know, I had you glazed-eyed at "inviscid", right? Or maybe it was "vortex", I dunno!

I signed up for these meteorology seminar announcements a while ago because I'm curious what they talk about now, 13 years after I left grad school in meteorology and a future path with science as a profession.

When I read this particular announcement I realized that another reason I read these is: I like the practice in reading these and constructing the mental house of cards of understanding each piece -- each phrase -- setting up the first floor of the card house, understanding each of the next pieces, putting them together into the next floor, and so on. A little mental challenge!

I'll admit, I'm not clear on what a quadrapole is. Maybe pairs of paired vortices. Yep, maybe that's it, LOL!