We present a new parameterisation for shear-driven, stratified, turbulent mixing which is pertinent to climate models, in particular the shear-driven mixing in overflows and the Equatorial Undercurrent. Critically for climate applications this parameterisation is simple enough to be implemented implicitly, which allows the parameterisation to be used with timesteps that are long compared to bot...

Sommerfeld paradox roughly says that mathematically Couette linear shear is linearly stable for all Reynolds number, but experimentally arbitrarily small perturbations can induce the transition from the linear shear to turbulence when the Reynolds number is large enough. The main idea of our resolution of this paradox is to show that there is a sequence of linearly unstable shears which approac...

We simulate incompressible, MHD turbulence using a pseudo-spectral code. Our major conclusions are as follows. 1) MHD turbulence is most conveniently described in terms of counter propagating shear Alfvén and slow waves. Shear Alfvén waves control the cascade dynamics. Slow waves play a passive role and adopt the spectrum set by the shear Alfvén waves. Cascades composed entirely of shear Alfvén...

Sheared toroidal flows can cause bifurcations to zero-turbulent-transport states in tokamak plasmas. The maximum temperature gradients that can be reached are limited by subcritical turbulence driven by the parallel velocity gradient. Here it is shown that q/ϵ (magnetic field pitch/inverse aspect ratio) is a critical control parameter for sheared tokamak turbulence. By reducing q/ϵ, far higher ...

Pilot reports from special turbulence-reporting periods were used t o investigate methods of analyzing and forecasting clear-air turbulence over the United States. Meteorological analyses for the special reporting periods were made objectively by computer using only standard upper air rawinsonde measurements. The wind analyses were built upward from the 400-mb level to the 200-mb level using th...

Transitional pipe flow is modeled as a one-dimensional excitable and bistable medium. Models are presented in two variables, turbulence intensity and mean shear, that evolve according to established properties of transitional turbulence. A continuous model captures the essence of the puff-slug transition as a change from excitability to bistability. A discrete model, which additionally incorpor...

The effect of flow shear on turbulent transport in tokamaks is studied numerically in the experimentally relevant limit of zero magnetic shear. It is found that the plasma is linearly stable for all nonzero flow shear values, but that subcritical turbulence can be sustained nonlinearly at a wide range of temperature gradients. Flow shear increases the nonlinear temperature gradient threshold fo...

The subject of angular momentum transport is important in theories concerning accretion disks. The αmodel of Shakura and Sunyaev1) assumes outward transportation of angular momentum due to some viscous force. This viscosity is believed to originate from turbulence, because the molecular viscosity is far too small in this case. Because the viscosity formula for turbulence is not well known, gene...

We study the dynamics of the Taylor-Couette flow of shear banding wormlike micelles. We focus on the high shear rate branch of the flow curve and show that for sufficiently high Weissenberg numbers, this branch becomes unstable. This instability is strongly subcritical and is associated with a shear stress jump. We find that this increase of the flow resistance is related to the nucleation of t...