Session Ch - Convection & Buoyancy.
ORAL session, Sunday, November 23
308, Moscone Center
The thermohaline staircase, observed in laboratory and oceanographic studies of thermally-driven convective turbulence in salt-stratified media, is simulated using a Monte Carlo model, One-Dimensional Turbulence (ODT). ODT is a fully resolved 1D simulation in which molecular transport (viscosity, species diffusion) is implemented deterministically, punctuated by rearrangement events (mappings) representing turbulent eddies. The stochastic event sequence is governed by a rate expression reflecting the shear kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy available to drive eddies. This formulation, previously applied to various shear-driven and buoyancy-driven flows, is found to predict (with no empirical input) the experimentally observed regimes of heat:salt flux-ratio dependence on the heat:salt buoyancy stability ratio across a double-diffusive interface. Other familiar features of staircase development and structure are reproduced.