Geophysical flows are characterized by parameter values that are far outside those that can be studied in the laboratory or via state of the art numerical simulations. I will describe a formal multiscale asymptotic procedure for rapidly rotating convection that leads to a reduced system of equations valid in the limit of vanishing Ekman number. These equations describe four regimes as the Rayleigh number Ra increases: a disordered cellular regime near threshold, a regime of weakly interacting convective Taylor columns at larger Ra, followed for yet larger Ra by a breakdown of the Taylor columns into disordered plumes, and finally by geostrophic turbulence. When scaled using the asymptotic scales, the full equations can be integrated at Ekman numbers six orders of magnitude smaller than the current state of the art, approaching geophysically realistic values for the very first time. The stationary state results converge to the predictions of the asymptotically reduced equations.
Co-authors: K. Julien, A. van Kan, B. Miquel, G. Vasil
By Stephen Griffies
By Catherine Sulem
By Richard Bamler
By Richard Bamler
By Richard Bamler
By Richard Bamler
By Kenji Nakanishi
