We examine the steady state of turbulent flows in thin layers using direct numerical simulations. It is shown that when the layer thickness is smaller than a critical height, an inverse cascade arises which leads to the formation of a steady state condensate where most of the energy is concentrated in the largest scale of the system. For layers of thickness smaller than a second critical height, the flow at steady state becomes exactly twodimensional. The amplitude of the condensate is studied as a function of layer thickness and Reynolds number. Bi-stability and intermittent bursts are found close to the two critical points. The results are interpreted based on a mean-field three-scale model that reproduces some of the basic features of the numerical results.

A physically based analytic model (λ model) is presented to describe the wind profile of the tropical cyclones in terms of the pressure deficit and a single shape parameter (λ).To test the λ model, an idealized full-physics numerical model is employed to provide

Abstract

No abstract

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 studies of state-independent forcing. As the contribution of the instability forcing, measured by a parameter $\gamma$ , increases, the system undergoes two transitions. For $\gamma$ below a first threshold, a regular large-scale vortex condensate forms. Above this threshold, shielded vortices (SVs) emerge within the condensate. At a second, larger value of $\gamma$ , the condensate breaks down, and a gas of weakly interacting vortices with broken symmetry spontaneously emerges, characterised by preponderance of vortices of one sign only and suppressed inverse energy cascade. The latter transition is shown to depend on the damping mechanism. The number density of SVs in the broken symmetry state slowly increases via a random nucleation process. Bistability is observed between the condensate and mixed SV-condensate states. Our findings provide new evidence for a strong dependence of two-dimensional turbulence phenomenology on the forcing.

Turbulent flows in a thin layer can develop an inverse energy cascade leading to spectral condensation of energy when the layer height is smaller than a certain threshold. These spectral condensates take the form of large-scale vortices in physical space. Recently, evidence for bistability was found in this system close to the critical height: depending on the initial conditions, the flow is either in a condensate state with most of the energy in the two-dimensional (2-D) large-scale modes, or in a three-dimensional (3-D) flow state with most of the energy in the small-scale modes. This bistable regime is characterised by the statistical properties of random and rare transitions between these two locally stable states. Here, we examine these statistical properties in thin-layer turbulent flows, where the energy is injected by either stochastic or deterministic forcing. To this end, by using a large number of direct numerical simulations (DNS), we measure the decay time τ d of the 2-D condensate to 3-D flow state and the build-up time τ b of the 2-D condensate. We show that both of these times τ d , τ b follow an exponential distribution with mean values increasing faster than exponentially as the layer height approaches the threshold. We further show that the dynamics of large-scale kinetic energy may be modeled by a stochastic Langevin equation. From time-series analysis of DNS data, we determine the effective potential that shows two minima corresponding to the 2-D and 3-D states when the layer height is close to the threshold.

Transient dynamics are of large interest in many areas of science. Here, a generalization of basin stability (BS) is presented: constrained basin stability (CBS) that is sensitive to various different types of transients arising from finite size perturbations. CBS is applied to the paradigmatic Lorenz system for uncovering nonlinear precursory phenomena of a boundary crisis bifurcation. Further, CBS is used in a model of the Earth's carbon cycle as a return time-dependent stability measure of the system's global attractor. Both case studies illustrate how CBS's sensitivity to transients complements BS in its function as an early warning signal and as a stability measure. CBS is broadly applicable in systems where transients matter, from physics and engineering to sustainability science. Thus CBS complements stability analysis with BS as well as classical linear stability analysis and will be a useful tool for many applications.

In many geophysical and astrophysical flows, suppression of fluctuations along one direction of the flow drives a quasi-two-dimensional upscale flux of kinetic energy, leading to the formation of strong vortex condensates at the largest scales. Recent studies have shown that the transition towards this condensate state is hysteretic, giving rise to a limited bistable range in which both the condensate state as well as the regular three-dimensional state can exist at the same parameter values. In this work, we use direct numerical simulations of thin-layer flow to investigate whether this bistable range survives as the domain size and turbulence intensity are increased. By studying the time scales at which rare transitions occur from one state into the other, we find that the bistable range grows as the box size and/or Reynolds number $Re$ are increased, showing that the bistability is neither a finite-size nor a finite- $Re$ effect. We furthermore predict a cross-over from a bimodal regime at low box size, low $Re$ to a regime of pure hysteresis at high box size, high $Re$ , in which any transition from one state to the other is prohibited at any finite time scale.