An External Line Plume next to a Dissolving Ice Face

Abstract

We present experiments that investigate the effect of a turbulent line plume next to a dissolving vertical ice face. The ice face provides a distributed source of buoyancy in addition to the buoyancy flux from the line plume at the base of the ice. The buoyancy flux, Bs is varied from 0.5Bo to 28Bo where Bo is the distributed buoyancy flux from the ice wall without the additional line plume. The plume velocity, ablation velocity of the ice and the temperature at the ice-fluid interface are measured over the height of the ice face. When B is small, the line plume is not dynamically important. However, as B increases the plume transitions to a regime where the distributed buoyancy flux from the ice wall is negligible and the line plume controls the flow. Within this regime the plume velocity is proportional to B1=3 and the ablation velocity increases as B increases