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Turbulence generation by large-scale extreme vertical drafts and the modulation of local energy dissipation in stably stratified geophysical flows

Raffaele Marino1, Fabio Feraco1,2, Leonardo Primavera2, Alain Pumir3, Annick Pouquet4, Duane Rosenberg5, and Pablo D. Mininni6

  • 1Université de Lyon, CNRS, École Centrale de Lyon, INSA Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Laboratoire de Mécanique des Fluides et d'Acoustique, UMR5509, F-69134 Écully, France
  • 2Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, 87036 Rende, Calabria, Italy
  • 3Univ Lyon, ENSL, CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique, F-69342 Lyon, France
  • 4Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
  • 5Louisville, Colorado 80027 USA
  • 6Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and IFIBA, CONICET, Buenos Aires 1428, Argentina

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 033801 – Published 14 March, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.033801

Abstract

We observe the emergence of strong vertical drafts in direct numerical simulations of the Boussinesq equations in a range of parameters of geophysical interest. These structures, which appear intermittently in space and time, generate turbulence and enhance kinetic and potential energy dissipation, providing a possible explanation for the observed variability of the local energy dissipation in the bulk of oceanic flows and the modulation of its probability distribution function. We show how, due to the extreme drafts, in runs with Froude numbers observable in geophysical scenarios, roughly 10% of the domain flow can account for up to 50% of the global volume dissipation, reminiscent of estimates based on oceanic models.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 033801– Published 14 March, 2022
  • Received 12 December 2020
  • Revised 3 June 2021
  • Accepted 16 February 2022
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