Journal article
Transport by deep convection in basin-scale geostrophic circulation: Turbulence-resolving simulations
CA Vreugdenhil, B Gayen, RW Griffiths
Journal of Fluid Mechanics | CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS | Published : 2019
DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2019.64
Abstract
Direct numerical simulations are used to investigate the nature of fully resolved small-scale convection and its role in large-scale circulation in a rotating f -plane rectangular basin with imposed surface temperature difference. The large-scale circulation has a horizontal geostrophic component and a deep vertical overturning. This paper focuses on convective circulation with no wind stress, and buoyancy forcing sufficiently strong to ensure turbulent convection within the thermal boundary layer (horizontal Rayleigh numbers Ra ∼ 1012-1013). The dynamics are found to depend on the value of a convective Rossby number, RoΔT , which represents the strength of buoyancy forcing relative to Corio..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Awarded by Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Fellowship
Awarded by R. J. L. Hawke Fellowship
Funding Acknowledgements
The research was supported by Australian Research Council grant DP140103706, C.A.V. was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award granted by the Australian Government Research Training Program, and B.G. was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Fellowship DE140100089 and the R. J. L. Hawke Fellowship AAS 4422. Numerical computations were carried out with grants from the Australian National Computational Infrastructure.