Production of Turbulence in the Vicinity of Critical Levels for Internal Gravity Waves

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Abstract
Calculations demonstrating that Internal gravity waves become unstable in the vicinity of critical levels are reported in this paper. An analytic linear inviscid model is used to look at the geometry of these unstable regions using parameters appropriate to the atmosphere. A nonlinear model is used to establish the usefulness of our simple analytic model. It is argued that turbulence should occur in regions of instability that are tens to hundreds of meters thick in the vertical. It is shown, in a fluid with a sufficiently large kinematic viscosity, that turbulence should no longer occur near critical levels. This condition indicates that turbulence will no longer be produced at critical levels above the altitude of the turbopause, about 100 km. Observational evidence is cited indicating that this production of turbulence near critical levels might be of importance in the planetary boundary layer, in the upper troposphere and stratosphere, in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, and even in the oceans.

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