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Dynamics Of Fingering Convection Ii: The Formation Of Thermohaline Staircases, Stephan Stellmach, Adrienne L. Traxler, Pascale Garaud, N. Brummell, T. Radko
Dynamics Of Fingering Convection Ii: The Formation Of Thermohaline Staircases, Stephan Stellmach, Adrienne L. Traxler, Pascale Garaud, N. Brummell, T. Radko
Physics Faculty Publications
Regions of the ocean's thermocline unstable to salt fingering are often observed to host thermohaline staircases, stacks of deep well-mixed convective layers separated by thin stably stratified interfaces. Decades after their discovery, however, their origin remains controversial. In this paper we use three-dimensional direct numerical simulations to shed light on the problem. We study the evolution of an analogous double-diffusive system, starting from an initial statistically homogeneous fingering state, and find that it spontaneously transforms into a layered state. By analysing our results in the light of the mean-field theory developed in Part 1 (Traxler et al., J. Fluid …
Dynamics Of Fingering Convection I: Small-Scale Fluxes And Large-Scale Instabilities, Adrienne L. Traxler, Stephan Stellmach, Pascale Garaud, T. Radko, N. Brummell
Dynamics Of Fingering Convection I: Small-Scale Fluxes And Large-Scale Instabilities, Adrienne L. Traxler, Stephan Stellmach, Pascale Garaud, T. Radko, N. Brummell
Physics Faculty Publications
Double-diffusive instabilities are often invoked to explain enhanced transport in stably stratified fluids. The most-studied natural manifestation of this process, fingering convection, commonly occurs in the ocean's thermocline and typically increases diapycnal mixing by 2 orders of magnitude over molecular diffusion. Fingering convection is also often associated with structures on much larger scales, such as thermohaline intrusions, gravity waves and thermohaline staircases. In this paper, we present an exhaustive study of the phenomenon from small to large scales. We perform the first three-dimensional simulations of the process at realistic values of the heat and salt diffusivities and provide accurate estimates …