Turbulent closure for atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers

A relaxation equation for the wave number to be used in semi-empirical closures of geophysical turbulence is proposed. It is shown that the traditional phenomenological equation for the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate can be considered as an approximation of the proposed relaxation equation for stably-stratified flows in a state of quasiequilibrium. The proposed approach facilitates the refinement of turbulent closures for the atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers by setting the equilibrium states and relaxation relations consistent with the data of direct and large-eddy numerical simulation. To verify this approach, we used the data of DNS and LES experiments of high resolution, conducted on supercomputers of the Moscow State University.

The result is published here:

Mortikov E.V., Glazunov A.V., Debolskiy A.V., Lykosov V.N., Zilitinkevich S.S. Modeling of the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy // Doklady Earth Sciences. 2019. 489, 1440-1443.

Zilitinkevich S.S., Druzhinin O., Glazunov A., Kadantsev E., Mortikov E., Repina I., Troitskaya Yu. Dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy in stably stratified flows // ACP. 2019. 19, 2489-2496