Comparison of an Adaptive Wavelet Method and Nonlinearly Filtered Pseudospectral Methods for Two-Dimensional Turbulence

Abstract. An adaptive wavelet method for solving the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations is compared with nonlinear Fourier filtering and nonlinear wavelet filtering of the pseudospectral method at each time step. The methods are each applied to a highly nonlinear flow typical of two-dimensional turbulence, the merger of two positive vortices pushed together by a weaker negative vortex, and the results are compared with a reference …