2024/11/13 by Alexandros Alexakis, Alexakis, Alexandros, Raffaele Marino +9
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.08427
openalex publication_date 2024/11/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
How turbulent convective fluctuations organise to form large-scale structures in planetary atmospheres remains a question that eludes quantitative answers. The assumption that this process is the result of an inverse cascade was suggested half a century ago in two-dimensional fluids, but its applicability to atmospheric and oceanic flows remains heavily debated, hampering our understanding of the energy balance in planetary systems. We show with direct numerical simulations of spatial resolutions of 122882 × 384 points that rotating and stratified flows can support a bidirectional cascade of energy, in three dimensions, with a ratio of Rossby to Froude numbers comparable to that of the Earth's atmosphere. Our results establish that in dry atmospheres spontaneous order can arise via an inverse cascade to the largest spatial scales.