The role of turbulent convection and wind in geostrophic circulation

Abstract

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) are used over a three-dimensional rotating basin under geostrophic rotation, in order to understand the relative roles of buoyancy and wind stress on the heat and mass transport. Our main focus is on the large Rayleigh number regime (Ra, being the measure of buoyancy forcing) which is the order of 1012 to sustain turbulent convection. We also maintained small values of convective Rossby number Ro ~ 0.1 at a fixed Prandtl number, Pr ~ 5 while imposing a meridional wind stress pattern. Show more