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Joseph Smagorinsky developed numerical experiments on atmospheric circulation and was a central figure in the early modeling work at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Its institutional history credits his work with Syukuro Manabe in building atmospheric models for climate research during the 1950s and 1960s.^[ref]

His 1963 General Circulation Experiments with the Primitive Equations: I. The Basic Experiment by Joseph Smagorinsky integrated a simplified atmospheric model over an extended period and examined its momentum and heat transport. The model represented winds at two internal levels and a single temperature, with specified radiative forcing and dissipative mechanisms. Its lateral exchange coefficient depended on the local horizontal strain rate.^[ref]

The motivating difficulty is scale. A computational grid can represent large circulation patterns while failing to resolve smaller eddies that still transport momentum and heat. The Smagorinsky model represents some effects of those unresolved motions by an eddy viscosity, linking the closure to the resolved deformation rather than tracking every small eddy directly.

The original experiment also illustrates scientific restraint: Smagorinsky reported aspects of agreement with observed circulation while judging the modeled small-scale diffusion to play too large a role. A model can reproduce broad patterns yet misallocate the processes producing them. Comparing transport mechanisms and energy budgets therefore supplies a stronger test than visual resemblance alone.^[ref]

The Smagorinsky model approximates the deviatoric subgrid-scale stress using an eddy viscosity determined by the resolved strain-rate tensor:Here ${\bar{S}}_{ij}=({\partial }_j{\bar{u}}_i+{\partial }_i{\bar{u}}_j)/2$, $\Delta$ is the filter length, $C_s$ is dimensionless, and repeated indices use the Einstein summation convention. The Kronecker delta selects the isotropic part. The construction estimates a missing effect from resolved deformation rather than calculating each unresolved eddy.^[ref]

For simple shear flow $\bar{u}=(\gamma y,0,0)$, the only nonzero strain components are ${\bar{S}}_{12}={\bar{S}}_{21}=\gamma /2$, giving $|\bar{S}|=|\gamma |$. Taking $C_s=0.1$, $\Delta =0.02\mathrm{m}$ and $\gamma =10{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ yieldsThese are illustrative parameter choices, not a universal fitted constant. The dimensions follow from ${\Delta }^2|\bar{S}|$.

For an incompressible flow, the resolved-to-unresolved kinetic energy transfer isA nonnegative eddy viscosity thus removes resolved kinetic energy and cannot represent local turbulent backscatter. Coefficients and near-wall treatment require physical and numerical judgment.

Joseph Smagorinsky's 1963 atmospheric-circulation experiment used a lateral exchange coefficient based on horizontal deformation and a length scale. The modern three-dimensional expression above extends that strain-dependent modeling idea; it should not be mistaken for the complete original atmospheric model.^[ref]

A subgrid-scale model represents the influence of unresolved motion on the quantities retained in a large eddy simulation. Its need follows directly from the nonlinear velocity product in the Navier-Stokes equations: averaging a product generally differs from multiplying the averages.

Let a bar denote a spatial averaging filter. With constant mass density $\rho$, constant kinematic viscosity $\nu$, and a time-independent translation-invariant filter on an unbounded or periodic domain, filtering the incompressible momentum equation giveswhere repeated indices use the Einstein summation convention, $p$ is pressure, and the subgrid-scale stress in this sign convention isThe assumed filter commutes with the displayed derivatives. The definition of ${\tau }_{ij}$ is exact; a closure must approximate it using available resolved information.^[ref]

For an elementary example, average two equally weighted values of one velocity component, $a$ and $-a$. The mean is zero but the mean square is $a^2$, so the corresponding stress component is $a^2$. A resolved mean alone has lost the information needed to reconstruct that covariance.

The Smagorinsky model closes the deviatoric part with an eddy viscosity:where ${\delta }_{ij}$ is the Kronecker delta, ${\bar{S}}_{ij}=({\partial }_j{\bar{u}}_i+{\partial }_i{\bar{u}}_j)/2$ is the resolved strain-rate tensor, $C_s$ a dimensionless model coefficient and $\Delta$ a characteristic filter width. The isotropic stress can be included in a modified pressure. This strain-dependent viscosity has its historical origin in Joseph Smagorinsky's atmospheric circulation modelling.^[ref][ref]

For an incompressible flow, the model transfers resolved kinetic energy out at the rate per unit massA fixed nonnegative eddy viscosity therefore permits dissipation but excludes local turbulent backscatter. A dynamic subgrid-scale model can instead estimate its coefficient from resolved stresses at two filter levels. This addresses a modelling choice, rather than changing the exact definition of the unresolved stress.^[ref]