Memory effects in stably stratified turbulence

Stably stratified turbulence (SST) is a model useful for understanding fluid flows that are highly intermittent and anisotropic at large scales. The understanding derived from SST is important for applications ranging from pollution mitigation, to deep sea mining, to human activities in regions of cold land or ice. SST is also valuable for enhancing fundamental turbulence theory on turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces, internal intermittency, and anisotropic multi-scale energetics. Recent work has identified the crucial difference between continuously forced SST and SST arising from an initial flow instability. Using a variety of mathematical and computational tools, this project will investigate in detail whether there are any identifiable generic properties of SST, or whether the initial conditions leave a sustained "imprint" on the subsequent turbulent evolution.