Title: Rapidly rotating convection

Description: Rapidly rotating thermal convection in a finite cylinder is considered in which the sidewalls are insulating and the top and bottom plates have temperature = -0.5 and +0.5, respectively. The Rossby, Rayleigh, Prandlt and Taylor numbers are Ro = 0.24, Ra = 3e7, Pr = 5.81, Ta=9.2e7, respectively. No centrifugal effects are considered as the Froude number (omega_0 * R^2/g) was on the order 1e-4 in relevant laboratory experiments [1].

Shown are isotherms at +/- 0.15 of the thermal field over 217 buoyancy rise times over 15 seconds at 20 fps. The solution corresponds to so-called 'irregular geostrophic turbulence' [2].

Credits: A. Rubio, J.M. Lopez, F. Marques

References: [1] Vorobieff, P. and Ecke, R. 2002 Turbulent rotating convection: an experimental study. J. Fl. Mech. 458 pp 191-281.

[2] Boubnov, B.M. and Golitsyn, G.S. 1995 Convection in Rotating Fluids. Kluwer.

Web Page: mathpost.la.asu.edu/~rubio/

Contributed By: Antonio Rubio