The scope and approach of the ATOMIX wiki

The ATOMIX wiki is a resource being created for SCOR working group 160, which was approved by the Scientific Committee of Ocean Research. The ATOMIX working group is designing the wiki to help newcomers learn more about turbulence processing, in particular estimating the rate of turbulent kinetic energy disspation [math]\displaystyle{ \varepsilon }[/math] from velocity-based measurements.

This wiki is all about collecting the best quality turbulence dissipation rate [math]\displaystyle{ \varepsilon }[/math] data possible. This quantity is essential in understanding how the ocean works on various scales.

The challenge is – while new technology makes it easy to collect the raw data that makes [math]\displaystyle{ \varepsilon }[/math] estimation possible - the extraction of quality [math]\displaystyle{ \varepsilon }[/math] from these raw data is not trivial.

With the growing array of hardware able to collect these data, it’s in everyone’s interests for these numbers to be as reliable as possible. We focus on three particular approaches - this may expand in the future, but the present choices are common approaches. These three individual processing guidelines share the same Nomenclature and data format attributes.

If you are new to ocean turbulence, this wiki will give you the tools to help you understand the processing steps and terminology. And then – primarily – it provides a way to test your analysis methodology with well-studied benchmark datasets, so you have a measure of how good your approach is.

It is not a “turbulence analysis package” – that’s not in our scope or purpose.

If you are experienced with one kind of turbulence instrument and are embarking on working with other approaches, this wiki will be a shortcut to building on what you already know.

It can be used at any stage in the process – from experiment design, through data collection and then primarily the analysis. Like any good recipe, it is worth looking at before embarking.

The wiki format means the knowledge base and datasets will continue to grow and provide an evolving resource and a way to connect with the turbulence community.

ATOMIX will advertise a peer-review period in 2022 that will be open to the ocean mixing community at large.

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