2
spectra). The kz
−5/3spectrum at small scales corresponds to weakly stratified isotropic
turbulence. In contrast, the kh
−5/3spectrum at much larger scales together with the steeper
vertical spectra cannot be due to isotropic turbulence and another interpretation should be
found.
Garrett & Munk (GM) [2] showed that a simple model of a continuous superposition
of internal waves is consistent with different types of measurements. Even though the
GM model is fully empirical and not based on a physical understanding of the underlying
dynamics, it is a remarkable result that the oceanic spectra can be modeled with only internal
waves, i.e. that the different spectra are consistent with the dispersion and polarization
relations. These spectra are often called “wave spectra” but they are actually the footprint
of the full dynamics, which can also involve non-wavy flows.
Indeed, flows influenced by stable stratification and system rotation can also contain a
non-wavy “balanced” part [3]. For example, in the case without rotation, the equation for
the vertical vorticity ωzdoes not contain any linear terms, which implies that the so-called
”horizontal vortices” (associated with ωzand horizontal velocity) are not linearly coupled
with the buoyancy. In the large majority of recent numerical simulations of stratified turbu-
lence, the associated ”vortical” (more precisely toroidal) energy is not small and horizontal
vortices play a key role. Moreover, wave-vortex interactions appear to be more efficient than
wave-wave interactions to drive a forward cascade [4].
There had been a lot of debate about the dynamical regime producing the GM spectra
and different physical explanations have been proposed (for reviews, see [4,5]). The success
of the GM model seems to indicate that the oceanic spectra are due to a kind of internal wave
turbulence. However, such spectra have not been reproduced with internal waves, neither
with laboratory experiments nor with numerical simulations. The large-scale k−5/3
hspectrum
tends to indicate that there could be an anisotropic turbulent cascade with an energy flux
through the horizontal scales. Recently, the theory of Weak Wave Turbulence (WWT),
which assumes that the flow consists only of weakly interacting waves, has been used to
derive solutions corresponding to the standard GM spectra and to observed variabilities
around this historical model [5,6].
An alternative dynamical explanation of the oceanic spectra has been proposed by Lind-
borg, Brethouwer and Riley [7,8]. They show that many oceanic measurements could
actually be compatible with “strongly stratified turbulence” [9,10]. This regime is strongly
nonlinear and involves, similarly to isotropic turbulence, both toroidal (associated with ωz)
and poloidal, horizontally divergent, modes. In the inertial range, the energy is approxi-
mately equipartitioned between these two modes. We will follow [11] and call this particular
regime “LAST” (for Layered Anisotropic Stratified Turbulence) to avoid confusion with
other somehow turbulent regimes in stratified fluids. The LAST regime is associated with
a downscale energy cascade and is obtained only when the large scales are simultaneously
strongly stratified (small horizontal Froude number Fh) and weakly influenced by viscosity
(large buoyancy Reynolds number R=ReFh2) [12].
Flows in the LAST regime have been obtained in high resolution idealized simulations.
In contrast, we are not aware of studies reporting forced dissipative flows composed of
a continuum of internal waves (without vortical modes) associated with spectra similar to
oceanic ones. Let us note that reproducing this regime might require very large experimental
apparatus or very large simulations that were until recently unfeasible. Moreover, most