Related papers: Inverse cascade in zonal flows
The eddy-driven jet stream and storm tracks in the mid-latitude atmosphere are known to shift in latitude on various timescales, but the physical processes that cause these shifts are still unclear. In this study, we introduce a minimal…
A remarkable phenomenon in turbulent flows is the spontaneous emergence of coherent large spatial scale zonal jets. Geophysical examples of this phenomenon include the Jovian banded winds and the Earth's polar front jet. In this work a…
We study the inverse energy transfer in forced two-dimensional (2D) Navier--Stokes turbulence in a doubly periodic domain. It is shown that an inverse energy cascade that carries a nonzero fraction of the injected energy to the large scales…
A remarkable feature of two-dimensional turbulence is the transfer of energy from small to large scales. This process can result in the self-organization of the flow into large, coherent structures due to energy condensation at the largest…
Instabilities of fluid flows often generate turbulence. Using extensive direct numerical simulations, we study two-dimensional turbulence driven by a wavenumber-localised instability superposed on stochastic forcing, in contrast to previous…
Eddy saturation describes the nonlinear mechanism in geophysical flows whereby, when average conditions are considered, direct forcing of the zonal flow increases the eddy kinetic energy, while the energy associated with the zonal flow does…
In this study, we report intermittent bursting of cyclonic columnar structures in direct numerical simulations of forced rotating turbulence in a three-dimensional (3D) periodic box. Columnar structure formation is associated with dominant…
We investigate the properties of the hydrodynamic flow around eccentric protoplanets and compare them with the often assumed case of a circular orbit. To this end, we perform a set of 3D hydrodynamic simulations of protoplanets with small…
The intense turbulence present in the solar convection zone is a major challenge to both theory and simulation as one tries to understand the origins of the striking differential rotation profile with radius and latitude that has been…
We present highlights from a large set of simulations of a hot Jupiter atmosphere, nominally based on HD 209458b, aimed at exploring both the evolution of the deep atmosphere, and the acceleration of the zonal flow or jet. We find the…
Zonal jets are striking and beautiful examples of the propensity for geophysical turbulent flows to spontaneously self-organize into robust, large scale coherent structures. There exist many dynamical mechanisms for the formation of zonal…
Astrophysical gases such as the interstellar-, circumgalactic- or intracluster-medium are commonly multiphase, which poses the question of the structure of these systems. While there are many known processes leading to fragmentation of cold…
We conduct an in-depth analysis of statistical flow properties calculated from the reference high-resolution Saturn simulation obtained by global climate modelling in Part II. In the steady state of this reference simulation, strongly…
The effect of rotation is considered to become important when the Rossby number is sufficiently small, as is the case in many geophysical and astrophysical flows. Here we present direct numerical simulations to study the effect of rotation…
The decay of a passive scalar in a three-dimensional chaotic flow is studied using high-resolution numerical simulations. The (volume-preserving) flow considered is a three-dimensional extension of the randomised alternating sine flow…
All planets and stars rotate. All gas planets in our solar system, the Sun, and many stars show a pattern of east- or westward mean flows. This phenomenon is known as differential rotation in the stellar and as zonal jets in the planetary…
The banded structures observed on the surfaces of the gas giants are associated with strong zonal winds alternating in direction with latitude. We use three-dimensional numerical simulations of compressible convection in the anelastic…
Turbulence follows a few well-known organizational principles, rooted in conservation laws. One such principle states that a system conserving two sign-definite invariants self-organizes into large-scale structures. Ordinary…
Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence regulates the transfer of energy from large to small scales in many astrophysical systems, including the solar atmosphere. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations with unprecedentedly…
A longstanding mystery about Jupiter has been the straightness and steadiness of its weather-layer jets, quite unlike terrestrial strong jets with their characteristic unsteadiness and long-wavelength meandering. The problem is addressed in…