Stratified Turbulence in the Middle Atmosphere

Understanding atmospheric dynamics at mesoscales (< 1000 km horizontally) is one of the crucial problems of modern atmospheric physics. Through the propagation and the breaking of gravity waves, mesoscale dynamics redistribute the momentum and energy non-locally and induce turbulent energy cascades and mixing throughout the atmosphere. Moreover, turbulent mixing is severely impacted by stable stratification in several dynamically complex regions of the atmosphere, and the incorporation of stratification brings significant advancements in the understanding of mesoscale processes, as highlighted by recent studies. As these dynamics are not fully resolved even in state-of-the-art Global Circulation Models, it is also a primary source of uncertainties that we address in our study using the theory of stratified turbulence.