Lagrangian dispersion and heat transport in convective turbulence

Lagrangian studies of the local temperature mixing and heat transport in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented, based on three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. Contrary to vertical pair distances, the temporal growth of lateral pair distances agrees with the Richardson law, but yields a smaller Richardson constant due to correlated pair motion in plumes. Our results thus imply that Richardson dispersion is also found in anisotropic turbulence. We find that extremely large vertical accelerations appear less frequently than lateral ones and are not connected with rising or falling thermal plumes. The height-dependent joint Lagrangian statistics of vertical acceleration and local heat transfer allow us to identify a zone which is dominated by thermal plume mixing.     

Scaling properties of the temperature field in convective turbulence

We report the scaling properties of temperature in turbulent convection in water. In the central region of the convection cell, we find that the peak frequency of the temperature dissipation spectra may be identified as the "Bolgiano frequency," with respect to which the temperature power spectra are universal functions; and that the usual inertial range is taken up entirely by the buoyancy subrange, so that a "high frequency" scaling subrange emerges only through an extended-self-similarity-type analysis. Moreover, the buoyancy subrange assumes the value of 2/5 predicted for the Bolgiano-Obukhov scaling only in the central region of the cell; in the mixing zone the exponent for the high frequency scaling exponent has a value of 2/3.     

Compressibility in solar wind plasma turbulence

Incompressible magnetohydrodynamics is often assumed to describe solar wind turbulence. We use extended self-similarity to reveal scaling in the structure functions of density fluctuations in the solar wind. The obtained scaling is then compared with that found in the inertial range of quantities identified as passive scalars in other turbulent systems. We find that these are not coincident. This implies that either solar wind turbulence is compressible or that straightforward comparison of structure functions does not adequately capture its inertial range properties.     

Nonaxisymmetric anisotropy of solar wind turbulence

A key prediction of turbulence theories is frame-invariance, and in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, axisymmetry of fluctuations with respect to the background magnetic field. Paradoxically the power in fluctuations in the turbulent solar wind are observed to be ordered with respect to the bulk macroscopic flow as well as the background magnetic field. Here, nonaxisymmetry across the inertial and dissipation ranges is quantified using in situ observations from Cluster. The observed inertial range nonaxisymmetry is reproduced by a "fly through" sampling of a direct numerical simulation of MHD turbulence. Furthermore, fly through sampling of a linear superposition of transverse waves with axisymmetric fluctuations generates the trend in nonaxisymmetry with power spectral exponent. The observed nonaxisymmetric anisotropy may thus simply arise as a sampling effect related to Taylor's hypothesis and is not related to the plasma dynamics itself.     

Mean effects of turbulence on elliptic instability in fluids

Elliptic instability in fluids is discussed in the context of the Lagrangian-averaged Navier-Stokes-alpha (LANS-alpha) turbulence model. This model preserves the Craik-Criminale (CC) family of solutions consisting of a columnar eddy and a Kelvin wave. The LANS-alpha model is shown to preserve elliptic instability. However, the model shifts the critical stability angle. This shift increases (decreases) the maximum growth rate for long (short) waves. It also introduces a band of stable CC solutions for short waves.     

Theoretical study of the decaying convective turbulence in a shear-buoyancy PBL

The derivation of a theoretical model for the decaying convective turbulence in a shear-buoyancy planetary boundary layer is considered. The model is based on the dynamical equation for the energy density spectrum in which the buoyancy, mechanical and inertial transfer terms are retained. The parameterization for the buoyancy and mechanical terms is provided by the flux Richardson number. Regarding the inertial term an approach employing Heisenberg’s spectral transfer theory is used to describe the turbulence friction, caused by small eddies, responsible for the energy dissipation of the large eddies. Therefore, a novelty in this study is to utilize the Adomian decomposition method to solve directly without linearization the energy density spectrum equation, with this the nonlinear nature of the problem is preserved. Therefore, the errors found are only due to the parameterization used. Comparison of the theoretical model is performed against large-eddy simulation data for a decaying convective turbulence in a shear-buoyancy planetary boundary layer. The results show that the existence of a mechanical turbulent driving mechanism reduces in an accentuated way the energy density spectrum and turbulent kinetic energy decay generated by the decaying convective production in a shear-buoyancy planetary boundary layer.     

Observations of nonlinear turbulence in the upstream solar wind

Summary Plasma, electric-field and magnetic-field data from several experiments on board the spacecraft ISEE 1 and 2 have been analysed in the interaction region upstream of the Earth's bow shock. Upstream waves which are known to be associated with diffuse distributions of backstreaming protons are shown to correlate also with variability in the distribution of the incoming solar-wind protons. Both phenomena are also clearly connected with the presence of enhanced electric-field turbulence. On the basis of these relations, a preliminary discussion can be given of the complex nonlinear plasma processes occurring in the foreshock region.     

Origin and evolution of MHD turbulence in the solar wind

Summary Solar wind turbulence has both solar and interplanetary sources. Outward travelling waves are generated at the Sun with a spectrum related to the turbulent processes in the solar atmosphere. Instabilities at velocity shears give a local contribution of waves with inward and outward propagation. Nonlinear interactions between the two kinds of waves lead to an energy cascade and to a Kolmogoroff spectrum. To speed up publication, the proofs were not sent to the authors and were supervised by the Scientific Committee.     

Magnetic discontinuities in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and in the solar wind

Recent measurements of solar wind turbulence report the presence of intermittent, exponentially distributed angular discontinuities in the magnetic field. In this Letter, we study whether such discontinuities can be produced by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We detect the discontinuities by measuring the fluctuations of the magnetic field direction, Δθ, across fixed spatial increments Δx in direct numerical simulations of MHD turbulence with an imposed uniform guide field B(0). A large region of the probability density function (pdf) for Δθ is found to follow an exponential decay, proportional to exp(-Δθ/θ(*)), with characteristic angle θ(*)≈(14°)(b(rms)/B(0))(0.65) for a broad range of guide-field strengths. We find that discontinuities observed in the solar wind can be reproduced by MHD turbulence with reasonable ratios of b(rms)/B(0). We also observe an excess of small angular discontinuities when Δx becomes small, possibly indicating an increasing statistical significance of dissipation-scale structures. The structure of the pdf in this case closely resembles the two-population pdf seen in the solar wind. We thus propose that strong discontinuities are associated with inertial-range MHD turbulence, while weak discontinuities emerge from dissipation-range turbulence. In addition, we find that the structure functions of the magnetic field direction exhibit anomalous scaling exponents, which indicates the existence of intermittent structures.     

Nonaxisymmetric anisotropy of solar wind turbulence as a direct test for models of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

Single point spacecraft observations of the turbulent solar wind flow exhibit a characteristic nonaxisymmetric anisotropy that depends sensitively on the perpendicular power spectral exponent. We use this nonaxisymmetric anisotropy as a function of wave vector direction to test models of MHD turbulence. Using Ulysses magnetic field observations in the fast, quiet polar solar wind we find that the Goldreich-Sridhar model of MHD turbulence is not consistent with the observed anisotropy, whereas the observations are well reproduced by the "slab+2D" model. The Goldreich-Sridhar model alone cannot account for the observations unless an additional component is also present.     

Sunset decay of the convective turbulence with Large-Eddy Simulation under realistic conditions

Large-Eddy Simulation is performed for a single day from the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study (CASES-99) field program. This study investigates an observed case of evening transition boundary layer over land. Parameters of the ambient atmosphere in the LES-decay studies conducted so far were typically prescribed in an idealized form. To provide suitable data under the wide range of the PBL weather conditions, the LES should be able to adequately reproduce the PBL turbulence dynamics including–if possible–baroclinicity, radiation, large scale advection and not only be related to a decreasing surface heating. In addition LES-decay studies usually assume that the sensible heat flux decreases instantaneously or with a very short time scale. The main purpose of this investigation is to study the decay of boundary-layer average turbulent kinetic energy at sunset with Large-Eddy Simulation that is forced with realistic environment conditions. This allows investigating the Turbulent Kinetic Energy decay over the realistic time scale that is observed in the atmosphere. During the intermediate and last stage of decay of the boundary-layer average Turbulent Kinetic Energy the exponents of the decay power law t⁻ⁿ$t^{-n}$ go from 2 to 6, as evidenced by experimental results and recent analytical modeling in the surface layer.     

Measuring wind speeds and turbulence with a wave-front sensor

We analyze wave-front sensor (WFS) measurements taken with the 1.5-m telescope at the Starfire Optical Range in Albuquerque, N.M., of wind speeds in the turbulent atmospheric layers that cause seeing. The frozen-flow hypothesis suggests that atmospheric turbulence is located in thin horizontal layers and that turbulent features do not change over short time scales but are drawn along by the prevailing wind. Exploiting autocorrelation properties of the WFS data that result from these characteristics of atmospheric turbulence, we are able to measure the movements of individual layers. We also test the validity of the frozen-flow hypothesis.