Impeded inverse energy transfer in the Charney–Hasegawa–Mima model of quasi-geostrophic flows

DOI10.1017/S0022112005008384MaRDI QIDQ5289868zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Chuong V. Tran, David G. Dritschel

Publication date 19 April 2006

Published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/nlin/0512007

zbMATH Keywords

forced-dissipative turbulenceRossby deformation wavenumber

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory of rotating fluids (76U05) Hydrology, hydrography, oceanography (86A05)

Abstract: The behaviour of turbulent flows within the single-layer quasi-geostrophic (Charney--Hasegawa--Mima) model is shown to be strongly dependent on the Rossby deformation wavenumber $lambda$ (or free-surface elasticity). Herein, we derive a bound on the inverse energy transfer, specifically on the growth rate $dell/dt$ of the characteristic length scale $ell$ representing the energy centroid. It is found that $dell/dtle2orm{q}_{i}nfty/(el{l}_{s}lambd{a}^2)$, where $orm{q}_{i}nfty$ is the supremum of the potential vorticity and $el{l}_s$ represents the potential enstrophy centroid of the reservoir, both invariant. This result implies that in the potential energy dominated regime ($ellgeel{l}_{s}gglambd{a}^{-1}$), the inverse energy transfer is strongly impeded, in the sense that under the usual time scale no significant transfer of energy to larger scales occurs. The physical implication is that the elasticity of the free surface impedes turbulent energy transfer in wavenumber space, effectively rendering large-scale vortices long-lived and inactive. Results from numerical simulations of forced-dissipative turbulence confirm this prediction.

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• Long frontal waves and dynamic scaling in freely evolving equivalent barotropic flow
• On the spacing of meandering jets in the strong-stair limit
• Large-scale dynamics in two-dimensional Euler and surface quasigeostrophic flows

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