How does one derive models of dynamical feedback effects in multiscale, multiphysics systems such as wave mean flow interaction (WMFI)? We shall address this question for hybrid dynamical systems, defined as systems whose motion can be expressed as the composition of two or more Lie-group actions. Hybrid systems abound in fluid dynamics. Examples include: the dynamics of complex fluids such as liquid crystals; wind-driven waves propagating with the currents moving on the sea surface; turbulence modelling in fluids and plasmas; and classical–quantum hydrodynamic models in molecular chemistry. From among these examples, the motivating question here is: How do wind-driven waves produce ocean surface currents?

The paper first summarises the geometric mechanics approach for deriving hybrid models of multiscale, multiphysics motions in ideal fluid dynamics. It then illustrates this approach for WMFI in the examples of 3D WKB waves and 2D wave amplitudes governed by the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation propagating in the frame of motion of an ideal incompressible inhomogeneous Euler fluid flow. The results for these examples tell us that the mean flow in WMFI does not create waves, although it does transport the waves. However, feedback in the opposite direction is possible, since the 3D WKB and 2D NLS wave dynamics discussed here do in fact create circulatory mean flow.