Expressing Oceanic Turbulence Parameters by Atmospheric Turbulence Structure Constant

Abstract

The parameters composing oceanic turbulence are the wavelength, link length, rate of dissipation of kinetic energy per unit mass of fluid, rate of dissipation of mean-squared temperature, Kolmogorov microscale, and the ratio of temperature to salinity contributions to the refractive index spectrum. The required physical entities such as the average intensity and the scintillation index in the oceanic medium are formulated by using the power spectrum of oceanic turbulence, which is described by oceanic turbulence parameters. On the other hand, there exists a rich archive of formulations and results for the above-mentioned physical entities in atmospheric turbulence, where the parameters describing the turbulence are the wavelength, the link length, and the structure constant. In this paper, by equating the spherical wave scintillation index solutions in the oceanic and atmospheric turbulences, we have expressed the oceanic turbulence parameters by an equivalent structure constant used in turbulent atmosphere. Such equivalent structure constant will help ease reaching solutions of similar entities in an oceanic turbulent medium by employing the corresponding existing solutions, which are valid in an atmospheric turbulent medium. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America