Stratification versus turbulence in complex convection

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong stratification influences turbulence in complex convection, showing a transition from turbulence to deterministic chaos and then to distributed chaos as stratification weakens, based on numerical and observational data.

Contribution

It demonstrates the transformation of turbulence into chaos due to stratification effects using numerical simulations and atmospheric measurements.

Findings

Strong stratification induces deterministic chaos with exponential spectral decay.

Weaker stratification leads to distributed chaos with stretched exponential spectral decay.

Results are supported by atmospheric boundary layer and solar photosphere data.

Abstract

Natural convection is usually complicated by additional factors such as rotation, shear, radiative transfer, compressibility and electromagnetic fields (in the case of electro-conductive fluids). It is shown, using results of numerical simulations and measurements in atmospheric boundary layer and solar photosphere that strong stratification can transform turbulence into deterministic chaos with exponential spectral decay of kinetic energy. When the stratification becomes weaker the deterministic chaos is replaced by the distributed chaos with stretched exponential spectral decay controlled by the second or third moments of the helicity distribution.