Time evolution of the different terms in the magnetic energy density evolution equation (see Sect. 3.2, Eq. 4) integrated over the entire domain. Shown are the stretching term ∫dV B ⋅ (B ⋅ ∇)v, compression term ∫dV e_mag∇ ⋅ v, the time derivative of the total magnetic energy ∂_t E_mag and the numerical dissipation term (∂_t E_mag − ∫dV ∂_t e_mag) in red, orange, black and violet, respectively. Given the applied periodic boundary condition in our model, the contribution of the advection term vanishes, and for the analysis here we focus on the compression and stretching terms. The time derivative of the magnetic energy ∂_tE_mag is obtained from the data in Fig. 4a.