The Surprising Roles of Turbulence in Tropical Cyclone Physics

Abstract

Tropical cyclones have long been known to be powered by turbulent enthalpy fluxes from the ocean’s surface and slowed by turbulent momentum fluxes into the surface. Here, we review evidence that the development and structure of these storms are also partially controlled by turbulence in the outflow near the storm’s top. Finally, we present new research that shows that tropical cyclone-like, low-aspect-ratio vortices are most likely in systems in which the bottom heat flux is controlled by mechanical turbulence, and the top boundary is insulating.

Intermittency Scaling for Mixing and Dissipation in Rotating Stratified Turbulence at the Edge of Instability

“…The higher level of saturation for the RST runs is due to the fact that on the one hand, there is a lesser dissipation due to the strong effect of waves, and on the other hand, Ro ≈ 0.36 for run Q1, which is low enough that an inverse transfer of energy to the large scales is plausible, although it cannot be distinguished directly on energy spectra which are still peaked at k ≈ k F (see Figure 3d). Higher Ro may correspond to the environment of tropical storms in which turbulence also plays a dual role [131,132]. In Figure 3b we plot K w (dotted magenta line), the kinetic (solid blue), potential (black dashed) and total energy dissipation rates for run R1, with the time expressed in units of the turnover time τ NL .…”