In planetary atmospheres, turbulent motions play an essential role in the mixing of heat, momentum and chemical species. However, current atmospheric models use meshes that are too coarse to resolve these movements, making it necessary to parameterise them.

In both terrestrial and Martian atmospheric models, numerical and physical problems had been identified in the turbulence patterns. This observation highlighted a need for exchanges and collective training within the laboratory, which led to the creation of the ‘TKE Workshop’ in October 2022. Made up of permanent researchers and PhD students, this workshop led to the design and development of a new parameterisation for turbulence, designed to be universal and applicable to all planets.

This new parametrisation was tested on Antarctica and Mars and improves the numerical stability and representation of turbulent motions.

This work has given rise to a scientific publication entitled ‘Designing a fully-tunable and versatile TKE-l turbulence parameterization for atmospheric models’, published in October 2024 in the journal JAMES.

(Image credit © Juan Pedro Mellado, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology).