Overturning events in stratified turbulence
I will present the latest results of the investigation of stratified turbulence in the Coriolis facility. Energy is injected into linearly stratified water by large-scale internal gravity waves. Since 2018, we have investigated various regimes of such flow from weakly nonlinear wave turbulence to strongly nonlinear, strongly stratified cases. In the latter case, we reach the LAST regime (Layered Anisotropic Stratified Turbulence) generated by the continuous breaking of internal waves. This regime is characterized by large Reynolds numbers Re and weak horizontal Froude number Fh such that the buoyancy Reynolds number Reb=ReFh^2 is large. I will present the statistical properties of such a flow using various diagnostics such as Eulerian velocity fields from PIV, Lagrangian dispersion from PTV, and vertical density scans. In particular, I will show the occurrence of a staircase (or ramp/cliff) in the density field.
