Stochastic subgrid-scale modelling for non-equilibrium geophysical flows

Methods motivated by non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of turbulence are applied to solve an important practical problem in geophysical fluid dynamics, namely the parametrization of subgrid-scale eddies needed in large-eddy simulations (LESs). A direct stochastic modelling scheme that is closely related to techniques based on statistical closure theories, but which is more generally applicable to complex models, is employed. Here, we parametrize the effects of baroclinically unstable subgrid-scale eddies in idealized flows with broad similarities to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current of the Southern Ocean. The subgrid model represents the effects of the unresolved eddies through a generalized Langevin equation. The subgrid dissipation and stochastic forcing covariance matrices as well as the mean subgrid forcing required by the LES model are obtained from the statistics of a high resolution direct numerical simulation (DNS). We show that employing these parametrizations leads to LES in close agreement with DNS.