Identification

Title

Correlation between buoyancy flux, dissipation and potential vorticity in rotating stratified turbulence

Abstract

We study in this paper the correlation between the buoyancy flux, the efficiency of energy dissipation and the linear and nonlinear components of potential vorticity, PV, a point-wise invariant of the Boussinesq equations, contrasting the three identified regimes of rotating stratified turbulence, namely wave-dominated, wave-eddy interactions and eddy-dominated. After recalling some of the main novel features of these flows compared to homogeneous isotropic turbulence, we specifically analyze three direct numerical simulations in the absence of forcing and performed on grids of 1024(3) points, one in each of these physical regimes. We focus in particular on the link between the point-wise buoyancy flux and the amount of kinetic energy dissipation and of linear and nonlinear PV. For flows dominated by waves, we find that the highest joint probability is for minimal kinetic energy dissipation (compared to the buoyancy flux), low dissipation efficiency and low nonlinear PV, whereas for flows dominated by nonlinear eddies, the highest correlation between dissipation and buoyancy flux occurs for weak flux and high localized nonlinear PV. We also show that the nonlinear potential vorticity is strongly correlated with high dissipation efficiency in the turbulent regime, corresponding to intermittent events, as observed in the atmosphere and oceans.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rv0s20

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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geoscientificInformation

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Text

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title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

effective date

2021-01-26T00:00:00Z

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Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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None

Responsible organisations

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contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2023-08-18T18:28:35.382651

Metadata language

eng; USA