Geophysical turbulence

A key difference between classic 3D turbulence and atmospheric (geostrophic) turbulence is that energy cascades to large scales rather than to the small scales, and as a consequence coherent features such as vortices and jets form. These play a key role in shaping Earth’s climate, particularly at midlatitudes. The fast rotation of the planet results in several fundamental scales that emerge such as the Rossby and Rhines scales. How these relate to the scales where energy enters from baroclinic or barotropic processes and the scales emerging from the planetary properties shape the resulting dynamics. Our focus is on how the turbulence shapes the large scale dynamics observed on different planets. Specifically we focus on eddy-driven jets which are shaped by the eddy-eddy and eddy-mean interaction, and depend on the relative relations between these different length scales.

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