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Potential enstrophy in stratified turbulence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2013

Michael L. Waite
Michael L. Waite*
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue W., Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
*
†Email address for correspondence: mwaite@uwaterloo.ca
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Abstract

Direct numerical simulations are used to investigate potential enstrophy in stratified turbulence with small Froude numbers, large Reynolds numbers, and buoyancy Reynolds numbers ($R{e}_{b} $) both smaller and larger than unity. We investigate the conditions under which the potential enstrophy, which is a quartic quantity in the flow variables, can be approximated by its quadratic terms, as is often done in geophysical fluid dynamics. We show that at large scales, the quadratic fraction of the potential enstrophy is determined by $R{e}_{b} $. The quadratic part dominates for small $R{e}_{b} $, i.e. in the viscously coupled regime of stratified turbulence, but not when $R{e}_{b} \gtrsim 1$. The breakdown of the quadratic approximation is consistent with the development of Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities, which are frequently observed to grow on the layerwise structure of stratified turbulence when $R{e}_{b} $ is not too small.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Geophysical and Geological Flows Turbulent Flows: Stratified turbulence Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation
Type
Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 722 , 10 May 2013 , R4
Copyright
©2013 Cambridge University Press

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