Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy in stably stratified sheared flows

Zilitinkevich, Sergej; Druzhinin, Oleg; Glazunov, Andrey; Kadantsev, Evgeny; Mortikov, Evgeny; Repina, Iryna; Troitskaya, Yulia

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-2489-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-2489-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX)

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-2489-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 4

Research article

|

27 Feb 2019

Research article |

| 27 Feb 2019

Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy in stably stratified sheared flows

Sergej Zilitinkevich, Oleg Druzhinin, Andrey Glazunov, Evgeny Kadantsev, Evgeny Mortikov, Iryna Repina, and Yulia Troitskaya

Data sets

Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy: direct numerical simulation and atmospheric data E. Kadantsev, E. Mortikov, O. Druzhinin, and I. Repina https://doi.org/10.23728/b2share.fd1f300ec18b4fe1bd3d811630b0afd7

Short summary

We consider the budget of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in stably stratified flows. TKE is generated by velocity shear, then partially converted to potential energy, but basically cascades towards very small eddies and dissipates into heat. The TKE dissipation rate is vital for comprehending and modelling turbulent flows in geophysics, astrophysics, and engineering. Until now its dependence on static stability remained unclear. We define it theoretically and validate against experimental data.