Diffusion-Free Scaling in Rotating Spherical Rayleigh-Bénard Convection

Guiquan Wang*, Luca Santelli, Detlef Lohse, Roberto Verzicco, Richard J.A.M. Stevens*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)
124 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Direct numerical simulations are employed to reveal three distinctly different flow regions in rotating spherical Rayleigh-Bénard convection. In the high-latitude region (Formula presented.) vertical (parallel to the axis of rotation) convective columns are generated between the hot inner and the cold outer sphere. The mid-latitude region (Formula presented.) is dominated by vertically aligned convective columns formed between the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the outer sphere. The diffusion-free scaling, which indicates bulk-dominated convection, originates from this mid-latitude region. In the equator region (Formula presented.), the vortices are affected by the outer spherical boundary and are much shorter than in region (Formula presented.).

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2021GL095017
JournalGeophysical research letters
Volume48
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Oct 2021

Keywords

  • diffusion-free scaling
  • rapidly rotating
  • spherical shell
  • Thermal convection
  • UT-Hybrid-D

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