Spectral and Structure Function Estimates of Turbulence Dissipation Rates in a High Flow Tidal Channel Using Broadband ADCPs

Spectral and structure function methods are implemented to compute the dissipation rate, ε, from broadband, diverging-beam, acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data collected at four sites in a high-flow tidal channel. We show that mid-depth estimates of ε obtained from spectral and second-order structure function (SF2) methods are both log-normally distributed with comparable means and variances. Speed-bin averaged ε values agree to within 16%, depending on the site and tidal phase (ebb/flood).