Anisotropic Turbulence

This experiment compares two force-dissipative turbulence simulations, anisotropic beta-plane turbulence with isotropic f-plane turbulence. The forcing conditions are otherwise identical, only one additional term has been added to the quasigeostrophic potential vorticity equation which breaks the rotational symmetry.

The left panel show the QGPVE on a beta-plane, while the right panel shows the QGPVE on an f-plane. The anisotropy in the left panel is evident.
The left panel show the QGPVE on a beta-plane, while the right panel shows the QGPVE on an f-plane. The anisotropy in the left panel is evident.

The code is available on github to produce both the isotropic and anisotropic simulations. The code also outputs particle trajectories.