Structure and spacing of jets in barotropic turbulence

Turbulent flows are often observed to be organized into large-spatial-scale jets such as the familiar zonal jets in the upper levels of the Jovian atmosphere. These relatively steady large-scale jets are not forced coherently but are maintained by the much smaller spatial- and temporal-scale turbulence with which they coexist. The turbulence maintaining the jets may arise from exogenous sources such as small-scale convection or from endogenous sources such as eddy generation associated with baroclinic development processes within the jet itself. Recently a comprehensive theory for the interaction of jets with turbulence has been developed called stochastic structural stability theory (SSST). In this work SSST is used to study the formation of multiple jets in barotropic turbulence in order to understand the physical mechanism producing and maintaining these jets and, specifically, to predict the jet amplitude, structure, and spacing. These jets are shown to be maintained by the continuous spectrum of shear waves and to be organized into stable attracting states in the mutually adjusted mean flow and turbulence fields. The jet structure, amplitude, and spacing and the turbulence level required for emergence of jets can be inferred from these equilibria. For weak but supercritical turbulence levels the jet scale is determined by the most unstable mode of the SSST system and the amplitude of the jets at equilibrium is determined by the balance between eddy forcing and mean flow dissipation. At stronger turbulence levels the jet amplitude saturates with jet spacing and amplitude satisfying the Rayleigh-Kuo stability condition that implies the Rhines scale. Equilibrium jets obtained with the SSST system are in remarkable agreement with equilibrium jets obtained in simulations of fully developed beta-plane turbulence.