Log-Skew-Normality of Ocean Turbulence

The statistics of intermittent ocean turbulence is the key link between physical understanding of turbulence and its global implications. The log-normal distribution is the standard but imperfect assumed distribution for the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate. We argue that as turbulence is often generated by multiple changing sources, a log-skew-normal (LSN) distribution is more appropriate. We show the LSN distribution agrees excellently and robustly with observations. The heavy tail of the LSN distribution has important implications for sampling of turbulence in terrestrial and extraterrestrial analogous systems.