Papers › Phenomenology of decaying turbulence beneath surface waves
Phenomenology of decaying turbulence beneath surface waves
Gregory L. Wagner, Navid C. Constantinou
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This paper explores decaying turbulence beneath surface waves that is initially isotropic and shear-free. We start by presenting phenomenology revealed by wave-averaged numerical simulations: an accumulation of angular momentum in coherent vortices perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation, suppression of kinetic energy dissipation, and the development of depth-alternating jets. We interpret these features through an analogy with rotating turbulence (Holm 1996), wherein the curl of the Stokes drift, ∇×u^S, takes on the role of the background vorticity (for example, (f₀ + βy) ẑ on the beta plane). We pursue this thread further by showing that a two-equation model proposed by Bardina et al. (1985) for rotating turbulence reproduces the simulated evolution of volume-integrated kinetic energy. This success of the two-equation model -- which explicitly parametrizes wave-driven suppression of kinetic energy dissipation -- carries implications for modeling turbulent mixing in the ocean surface boundary layer. We conclude with a discussion about a wave-averaged analogue of the Rossby number appearing in the two-equation model, which we term the "pseudovorticity number" after the pseudovorticity ∇×u^S. The pseudovorticity number is related to the Langmuir number in an integral sense.
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