Finger puzzles
Finger puzzles
Date
2012-01-24
Authors
Schmitt, Raymond W.
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DOI
10.1017/jfm.2011.468
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Keywords
Double diffusive convection
Instability
Ocean processes
Instability
Ocean processes
Abstract
Salt fingers are a form of double-diffusive convection that can occur in a wide variety of fluid systems, ranging from stellar interiors and oceans to magma chambers. Their amplitude has long been difficult to quantify, and a variety of mechanisms have been proposed. Radko & Smith (J. Fluid Mech., this issue, vol. 692, 2012, pp. 5–27) have developed a new theory that balances the basic growth rate with that of secondary instabilities that act on the finite amplitude fingers. Their approach promises a way forward for computationally challenging systems with vastly different scales of decay for momentum, heat and dissolved substances.
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Author Posting. © Cambridge University Press, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Cambridge University Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics 692 (2012): 1-4, doi:10.1017/jfm.2011.468.
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Journal of Fluid Mechanics 692 (2012): 1-4