Diffusion in stably stratified turbulence

Abstract

We examine results of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of homogeneous turbulence in the presence of stable stratification. We focus on the effects of stratification on eddy diffusion, and the distribution of pairs of particles released in the flow. DNS results are presented over a range of stratification, and at Reynolds numbers compatible with aliased free spectral results for a resolution of 128 mesh points. We compare results for particle dispersion to simple analytic theories such as that proposed by Csanady (1964) and Pearson et al. (1983) by adapting the basic Langevin model to decaying turbulence at low Reynolds numbers. Stable stratification is found to arrest both single particle displacements and pair separation in the direction of stratification, but it leaves these quantities nearly unaltered in the transverse direction. With respect to the dynamics of stratified flows, we find that regions of strong viscous dissipation are intermittently spaced, and are associated with large horizontal vorticity, consistent with recent experimental results by Fincham et al. (1994).