Gravity waves and fine structure due to inertia-gravity waves at smaller vertical scales and decaying turbulence layers coexist throughout the atmosphere and the oceans. Gravity wave - turbulence interactions have also been the subject of many previous studies, but none to date have employed direct numerical simulations (DNS) spanning several decades of scales. This page provides links to movies of DNS that we have performed to begin to address these complex dynamics.
(Publications listed at bottom)
1. Fine structure with Ri = 1/4, m = 10
GW with a = 0.5, omega = N/10, m = 1
(minimum initial Ri = 1/8)
Low Resolution - (800, 80, 800) modes
a. Vorticity - streamwise-vertical cross section
b. Vorticity - spanwise-vertical cross section
c. Potential temperature perturbation
streamwise-vertical cross section
High Resolution - (1600, 160, 1600) modes
a. Vorticity - streamwise-vertical cross section
b. Vorticity - spanwise-vertical cross section
c. Potential temperature perturbation
streamwise-vertical cross section
Publications describing these results:
Fritts, D. C., L. Wang, and J. Werne, 2009: Gravity Wave - Fine Structure Interactions: A Reservoir of Small-Scale and Large-Scale Turbulence Energy, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19805, doi:10.1029/2009GL039501. ****** Paper.pdf ******
Simulations designed and performed by Dave Fritts, Ling Wang, and Joe Werne
Acknowledgments: Research results displayed on this page were performed with support under NSF grant ATM-0836407.