Turbulence characteristics of ice-free radiatively driven convection in a deep, unstratified lake

This study examines data collected with an autonomous underwater glider during a period of vigorous radiatively driven convection (RDC) and low winds in deep, unstratified Lake Superior. Conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) measurements reveal distinct convective plumes of warm downwelling water with temperature anomalies of ~0.1 °C and width scales on the order of 10-100 m, consistent with theoretical scalings for the unstratified convective regime. Shear and temperature microstructure measurements indicate turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation (ε) and temperature variance dissipation rates (ΧT) orders of magnitude greater in thermal plumes than laterally adjacent waters. Decay timescales of ε indicate highly efficient mixing is sustained throughout the night. Energetics, mixing efficiency, and constraints on convective plume scales are also discussed. These observations demonstrate that RDC can dominate vertical mixing dynamics even in deep ice-free systems, and these system..., , , # Data from: Turbulence characteristics of ice-free radiatively driven convection in a deep, unstratified lake

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z8w9ghxp3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z8w9ghxp3)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: heat\_budget.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* datetime: datetime formatted string of time in local timezone (UTC - 5:00)
* datenum: matlab formatted datenum
* SW_Avg: incident shortwave radiation (W/m^2)
* LW_net: net longwave radiation (W/m^2)
* sensible_heat_flux: sensible heat flux (W/m^2)
* latent_heat_flux: latent heat flux (W/m^2)

#### File: buoyancy\_flux.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* datetime: datetime formatted string of time in local timezone (UTC - 5:00)
* datenum: matlab formatted datenum
* B*: radiative buoyancy flux, as defined in the manuscript (W/kg)

#### File: glider\_data.csv

**Description:** 

##### Variables

* ctd_date: datetime formatted string of time from CTD cloc...,