Chaos and information in two dimensional turbulence

Abstract: By performing a large number of fully resolved simulations of incompressible homogeneous and isotropic two dimensional turbulence, we study the scaling behavior of the maximal Lyapunov exponent, the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy and attractor dimension. The scaling of the maximal Lyapunov exponent is found to be in good agreement with the dimensional predictions. For the cases of the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy and attractor dimension the simple dimensional predictions are found to be insufficient. A dependence on the system size and the forcing length scale is found, suggesting non-universal behavior. The applicability of these results to atmospheric predictability is also discussed.