CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,131Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent FlowsComputational Fluid Dynamics and AerodynamicsOceanographic and Atmospheric Processes

The emergence of isolated coherent vortices in turbulent flow.

Mcwilliams, James C.·1984·Journal of Fluid Mechanics
DOI 10.1017/s0022112084001750
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

A study is made of some numerical calculations of two-dimensional and geostrophic turbulent flows. The primary result is that, under a broad range of circumstances, the flow structure has its vorticity concentrated in a small fraction of the spatial domain, and these concentrations typically have lifetimes long compared with the characteristic time for nonlinear interactions in turbulent flow (i.e. an eddy turnaround time). When such vorticity concentrations occur, they tend to assume an axisymmetric shape and persist under passive advection by the large-scale flow, except for relatively rare encounters with other centres of concentration. These structures can arise from random initial conditions without vorticity concentration, evolving in the midst of what has been traditionally characterized as the ‘cascade’ of isotropic, homogeneous, large-Reynolds-number turbulence: the systematic elongation of isolines of vorticity associated with the transfer of vorticity to smaller scales, eventually to dissipation scales, and the transfer of energy to larger scales. When the vorticity concentrations are a sufficiently dominant component of the total vorticity field, the cascade processes are suppressed. The demonstration of persistent vorticity concentrations on intermediate scales - smaller than the scale of the peak of the energy spectrum and larger than the dissipation scales - does not invalidate many of the traditional characterizations of two-dimensional and geostrophic turbulence, but I believe it shows them to be substantially incomplete with respect to a fundamental phenomenon in such flows.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0022112084001750

Cites

29 of 29 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Coherent vortices preferentially exist in regions where absolute vorticity or potential vorticity gradients vanish, as they can then arise spontaneously in barotropic or quasigeostrophic flows and remain stable.

    “Coherent vortices preferentially exist in regions where absolute vorticity or potential vorticity gradients vanish, as they can then arise spontaneously in barotropic or quasigeostrophic flows and remain stable (e.g., McWilliams 1984;Marcus 1988Marcus , 1993)).”

    From Mechanisms of Jet Formation on the Giant Planets (2010) · cites this paper as McWilliams 1984

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Mcwilliams, J. C.
Affiliations
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
Corresponding author
Mcwilliams, James C.
ORCID
Mcwilliams, James C.
Venue
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
1984-09
Volume
146
Pages
21-43
ISSN
  • 0022-1120 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-7645
DOI
10.1017/s0022112084001750
OpenAlex
W2996439688
Cited by
1,131
References
29
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 25
FWCI
23.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 7901 d)
Locations
Journal of Fluid Mechanics (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Computational Fluid Dynamics and Aerodynamics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes
Keywords
coherent vortices, isolated vortex, two-dimensional turbulence, geostrophic turbulence, vorticity concentration, energy cascade, eddy turnover time, axisymmetric vortex, intermediate scale

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review