Oceanography 540--Marine Geological Processes--Autumn Quarter 2002

Animation of (Unsteady) 2-D Convection

This animation is of a numerical model of two dimensional convection at high Rayleigh number. The streamlines are shown in the left hand panel; the temperature field in the right hand panel. The dominant mode involves downwelling in the center of the domain and upwelling at both sides (i.e., two convection cells). Occasionally however an instability forms in the center of the domain and is swept into one of the upflows (this short animation is looping and creates the illusion that the instability always moves to the left).
2-D convection animation
Animation courtesy of A. Cherkaoui, ©1998

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