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Transition to turbulence in wind-drift layers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2023

Gregory LeClaire Wagner Open the ORCID record for Gregory LeClaire Wagner [Opens in a new window] ,
Nick Pizzo Open the ORCID record for Nick Pizzo [Opens in a new window] ,
Luc Lenain Open the ORCID record for Luc Lenain [Opens in a new window]  and
Fabrice Veron Open the ORCID record for Fabrice Veron [Opens in a new window]
Gregory LeClaire Wagner*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Nick Pizzo
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI 02882, USA Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
Luc Lenain
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
Fabrice Veron
Affiliation:
School of Marine Science and Policy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

A light breeze rising over calm water initiates an intricate chain of events that culminates in a centimetres-deep turbulent shear layer capped by gravity–capillary ripples. At first, viscous stress accelerates a laminar wind-drift layer until small surface ripples appear. The surface ripples then catalyse the growth of a second instability in the wind-drift layer, which eventually sharpens into along-wind jets and downwelling plumes, before devolving into three-dimensional turbulence. In this paper, we compare laboratory experiments with simplified, wave-averaged numerical simulations of wind-drift layer evolution beneath monochromatic, constant-amplitude surface ripples seeded with random initial perturbations. Despite their simplicity, our simulations reproduce many aspects of the laboratory-based observations – including the growth, nonlinear development and turbulent breakdown the wave-catalysed instability – generally validating our wave-averaged model. But we also find that the simulated development of the wind-drift layer is disturbingly sensitive to the amplitude of the prescribed surface wave field, such that agreement is achieved through suspiciously careful tuning of the ripple amplitude. As a result of this sensitivity, we conclude that wave-averaged models should really describe the coupled evolution of the surface waves together with the flow beneath to be regarded as truly ‘predictive’.

JFM classification

Waves/Free-surface Flows: Surface gravity waves Turbulent Flows: Wave-turbulence interactions Instability: Transition to turbulence
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 976 , 10 December 2023 , A8
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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