Mixing and fluid dynamics under location uncertainty

This thesis develops, analyzes and demonstrates several valuable applications of randomized fluid dynamics models referred to as under location uncertainty. The velocity is decomposed between large-scale components and random time-uncorrelated small-scale components. This assumption leads to a modification of the material derivative and hence of every fluid dynamics models. Through the thesis, the mixing induced by deterministic low-resolution flows is also investigated. We first applied that decomposition to reduced order models (ROM). The fluid velocity is expressed on a finite-dimensional basis and its evolution law is projected onto each of these modes. We derive two types of ROMs of Navier-Stokes equations. A deterministic LES-like model is able to stabilize ROMs and to better analyze the influence of the residual velocity on the resolved component. The random one additionally maintains the variability of stable modes and quantifies the model errors. We derive random versions of several geophysical models. We numerically study the transport under location uncertainty through a simplified one. A single realization of our model better retrieves the small-scale tracer structures than a deterministic simulation. Furthermore, a small ensemble of simulations accurately predicts and describes the extreme events, the bifurcations as well as the amplitude and the position of the ensemble errors. Another of our derived simplified model quantifies the frontolysis and the frontogenesis in the upper ocean. This thesis also studied the mixing of tracers generated by smooth fluid flows, after a finite time. We propose a simple model to describe the stretching as well as the spatial and spectral structures of advected tracers. With a toy flow but also with satellite images, we apply our model to locally and globally describe the mixing, specify the advection time and the filter width of the Lagrangian advection method, as well as the turbulent diffusivity in numerical simulations.