Field observations of turbulent dissipation rate profiles immediately below the air‐water interface

Abstract

AbstractNear surface profiles of turbulence immediately below the air‐water interface were measured with a free‐floating Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system on Lake Michigan. The surface‐following configuration allowed the system to measure the statistics of the aqueous‐side turbulence in the topmost layer immediately below the water surface ( cm, z points downward with 0 at the interface). Profiles of turbulent dissipation rate (ε) were investigated under a variety of wind and wave conditions. Various methods were applied to estimate the dissipation rate. Results suggest that these methods yield consistent dissipation rate profiles with reasonable scattering. In general, the dissipation rate decreases from the water surface following a power law relation in the top layer, , i.e., the slope of the decrease was lower than that predicted by the wall turbulence theory, and the dissipation was considerably higher in the top layer for cases with higher wave ages. The measured dissipation rate profiles collapse when they were normalized with the wave speed, wave height, water‐side friction velocity, and the wave age. This scaling suggests that the enhanced turbulence may be attributed to the additional source of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) at the “skin layer” (likely due to micro‐breaking), and its downward transport in the water column.