Observation of turbulence and intermittency in wave-induced oscillatory flows

Alberello, Alberto ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7957-4012, Onorato, Miguel, Frascoli, Federico and Toffoli, Alessandro (2019) Observation of turbulence and intermittency in wave-induced oscillatory flows. Wave Motion, 84. pp. 81-89. ISSN 0165-2125

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Abstract

The dynamic and thermal regimes of the climate are regulated by an exchange of energy and momentum between the atmosphere and the ocean. The role exerted by surface waves on this interchange is particularly enigmatic. Waves induce turbulence in the upper ocean by breaking and through Langmuir circulations. However, there is evidence that the wave oscillatory flow can be turbulent and directly inject mixing into subsurface layers. The existence, extent and properties of this non-breaking, wave-induced turbulent flow still remain uncertain. Here we present measurements of the velocity field of oscillatory flows, which are induced by mechanically generated random wave fields in a large scale experimental facility. Velocities were recorded at a depth sufficiently far from the water surface to rule out the effects of wave breaking. We demonstrate that the spectral tail of the velocity field follows a power-law scaling close to [Formula presented], with [Formula presented] being the radial frequency. The turbulent behaviour is investigated via rigorous statistical analysis of the structure functions to highlight the emergence of intermittency in oscillatory flows.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding Information: Experiments were funded by the E.U. 7th Framework Programme through the Integrated Infrastructure Initiative HYDRALAB IV (Contract No. 022441 ). MO received support from Progetto di Ricerca d’Ateneo CSTO160004 and the “Departments of Excellence 2018–2022” Grant awarded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR, L.232/2016 ). AA and AT acknowledge support from the Air-Sea-Ice Lab Project. MO is grateful to B. Giulinico for discussions. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	intermittency,oscillatory flow,structure functions,turbulence,wave motion,modelling and simulation,physics and astronomy(all),computational mathematics,applied mathematics,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2600/2611
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2021 01:41
Last Modified:	23 Oct 2022 03:17
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/82543
DOI:	10.1016/j.wavemoti.2018.10.003

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