Rotating Convection Driven by Differential Bottom Heating and Its Application

摘要

A laboratory convection experiment was performed as a model of the thermohalinecirculation of the oceans with a rotating square container. Differential beating was applied along the bottom of the container using an electrical heater and a constant temperature cooling plate. The focus was given to scaling laws for meridional heat transport and a thermal boundary layer. Comparisons with earlier studies suggest that the heat transport of the experiment was mostly due to the meridional geostrophic flows and minor contribution due to the friction at the bottom. The same applies to the thermal boundary layer. The scaling law from the experiment (geostrophic scaling law) was applied to a two box model to study the stability of thermohaline circulation. The model shows that if the effects of the Earth's rotation are included, it is less likely to have a thermohaline catastrophic transition under the present conditions.