Turbulence in the Ocean, Atmosphere, Galaxy, and Universe

Carl H. Gibson

Published 1999-04-20Version 1

Flows in natural bodies of fluid often become turbulent, with eddy-like motions dominated by inertial-vortex forces. Buoyancy, Coriolis, viscous, self-gravitational, electromagnetic, and other force constraints produce a complex phase space of wave-like hydrodynamic states that interact with turbulence eddies, masquerade as turbulence, and preserve information about previous hydrodynamic states as fossil turbulence. Evidence from the ocean, atmosphere, galaxy and universe are compared with universal similarity hypotheses of Kolmogorov (1941, 1962) for turbulence velocity u, and extensions to scalar fields q like temperature mixed by turbulence. Information about previous hydrodynamic states is preserved by Schwarz viscous and turbulence lengths and masses of self-gravitating condensates. Viscous-gravitational formation occurred 10^4-10^5 y after the Big Bang for supercluster, cluster, and then galaxy masses of the plasma, producing the first turbulence. Condensation after plasma neutralization of the H-4He gas was to a primordial fog of sub-solar particles that persists today in galactic halos as "dark matter". These gradually formed all stars, star clusters, etc. (humans!) within.