High Rayleigh number convection with double diffusive fingers

Abstract eng:
Rayleigh-B´enard convection experiments observe a large scale circulation up to the highest Rayleigh numbers accessible to experiments. Here, it is shown that this organization at large scales is disrupted by a relatively small perturbation in double diffusive convection. Experiments reported here show that the large scale circulation disappears in favor of double diffusive fingers even if the total density stratification is unstable and the buoyancy introduced by the stabilizing agent is two orders of magnitude smaller than the buoyancy force due to the destabilizing agent. Another spectacular change in the large scale flow pattern occurs if the flow splits into several layers stacked upon each other. This is observed in the oceans, and this effect has been reproduced in our experiments.

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