Pullback dynamics of 3D Navier-Stokes equations with nonlinear viscosity

Abstract This paper is concerned with pullback dynamics of 3D Navier–Stokes equations with variable viscosity and subject to time-dependent external forces. Our main result establishes the existence of finite-dimensional pullback attractors in a general setting involving tempered universes. We also present a sufficient condition on the viscosity coefficients that guarantees the attractors are nontrivial. We end the paper by showing the upper semi-continuity of pullback attractors as the non-autonomous perturbation vanishes.