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Large-scale vortices and zonal flows in spherical rotating convection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2021

Yufeng Lin Open the ORCID record for Yufeng Lin [Opens in a new window]  and
Andrew Jackson Open the ORCID record for Andrew Jackson [Opens in a new window]
Yufeng Lin*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen518055, PR China
Andrew Jackson
Affiliation:
Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich, Zurich8092, Switzerland
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

Motivated by understanding the dynamics of stellar and planetary interiors, we have performed a set of direct numerical simulations of Boussinesq convection in a rotating full sphere. The domain is internally heated with fixed temperature and stress-free boundary conditions, but fixed heat flux and no-slip boundary conditions are also briefly considered. We particularly focus on the large-scale coherent structures and the mean zonal flows that can develop in the system. At Prandtl number of unity, as the thermal forcing (measured by the Rayleigh number) is increased above the value for the onset of convection, we find a relaxation oscillation regime, followed by a geostrophic turbulence regime. Beyond this we see for the first time the existence of large-scale coherent vortices that form on the rotation axis. All regime boundaries are well described by critical values of the convective Rossby number $Ro_c$, with transitions from oscillatory to geostrophic turbulence, and then to the large-scale vortex regime at values $Ro_c\approx 0.2$ and $Ro_c\approx 1.5$, respectively. The zonal flow is controlled by the convective Rossby number and changes its direction when the flow transitions from the geostrophic turbulence regime to the large-scale vortex regime. While the non-zonal flow speed and heat transfer can be described by the so-called inertial scaling in the geostrophic turbulence regime, the formation of large-scale vortices appears to reduce both the non-zonal flow speed and the efficiency of convective heat transfer.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Geostrophic turbulence Geophysical and Geological Flows: Rotating flows Convection: Convection in cavities
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 912 , 10 April 2021 , A46
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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Lin and Jackson supplementary movie 1

Axial vorticity in the equatorial plane and in the meridional plane for the case of figure 3.

Download Lin and Jackson supplementary movie 1(Video)
Video 1.9 MB

Lin and Jackson supplementary movie 2

Axial vorticity in the equatorial plane and zonal flow in the meridional plane for the case of figure 8.

Download Lin and Jackson supplementary movie 2(Video)
Video 6 MB