Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2006
A non-Rayleigh mechanism of instability in horizontally homogeneous hydrodynamic systems consisting of two iimmiscible fluids and heated uniformly from above, i.e. ‘anticonvection’, was first investigated theoretically by Welander (1964) and more recently (and independently) by Gershuni & Zhukhovitsky (1980). This paper discusses the possibility of ‘anticonvection’ occurring in a water–air system, taking into account evaporation, stratification with respect to moisture, thermocapillary effects and the presence of a surface heat source at the water–air interface. For this purpose, a linear problem of stability is solved, in which the Rayleigh number analogues in each of the fluids are its eigenvalues in one case and the increments of disturbances in the other. It has been shown that taking into account evaporation and stratification with respect to moisture in the air reveals a new feedback in the system resulting in the disappearance of one of the previously known areas of anticonvection and the formation of new areas of instability. The mechanism of the oscillatory regime of the loss of stability in the system under study was found and considered in detail. Increments and wavelengths of the growing modes are calculated, and the possibility of experimental investigation of moist anticonvection in laboratory and field conditions is discussed.