We investigate the response of convection to idealized perturbations in the thermodynamic environment in simulations which parameterize the large-scale circulations using the weak temperature gradient (WTG) approximation. The perturbations include a combination of modifying the environmental moisture and atmospheric stability via imposing anomalies in reference moisture and temperature profiles...

This essay concerns precipitating convective cloud systems and convectively-driven mesoscale circulations (“mesoscale convection”) and their role in the large-scale structure of the atmosphere. Mesoscale convection is an important and ubiquitous process on scales of motion spanning a few kilometers to many hundreds of kilometers. It plays a role in the input of energy to the climate system thro...

Results of thermal convection experiments in a rotating uid with a geometry similar to the Earth's core tangent cylinder are presented. We nd four di erent regimes of convection. In order of increasing heat ow, these are: (1) subcritical (no convection), (2) helical plumes (hetons) around the tangent cylinder, (3) hetons throughout the tangent cylinder, and (4) fully three-dimensional convectio...

5 The aim for a more accurate representation of tropical convection in global circulation models 6 is a long-standing issue. Here, we investigate the relationships between largeand convective 7 scales in observations and a Stochastic Multicloud Model (SMCM) to ultimately support 8 the design of a novel convection parametrization with stochastic elements. Observations of 9 tropical convection ob...

A global nonlinear stability analysis is performed for a couple-stress fluid layer heated from below saturating a porous medium with temperature-pressure dependent viscosity for different conducting boundary systems. Here, the global nonlinear stability threshold for convection is exactly the same as the linear instability boundary. This optimal result is important because it shows that lineari...

Recent investigations into convection in Europa’s ice shell have been based on nonNewtonian (stress-dependent) or Newtonian (stress-independent) viscosity for water ice. However, despite the wide use of Newtonian convection, experimentally observed water ice flow is non-Newtonian, and analysis of stability against convection of the ice shell using updated flow laws has been only performed for n...

[1] The ‘‘transition zone water filter’’ model of mantle convection attempts to reconcile geochemical evidence for isolated mantle reservoirs with geophysical evidence for whole mantle circulation by decoupling incompatible elements from bulk mantle circulation via a melt layer above the 410 km discontinuity. This would result in a stratified heating distribution similar to layered convection m...

We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a cylindrical convection cell with an aspect ratio of Γ=1/2. The fluid is helium gas with a Prandtl number Pr=0.7. The range of control parameters for Rayleigh numbers 4×10^{9}<Ra<4×10^{11} and for Ekman numbers 2×10^{-7}<Ek<3×10^{-5} (corresponding to Taylor numbers 4×10^{9}<Ta<1×10^{14} and convect...

[1] We investigate the physics of multiscale convection in Earth’s mantle, characterized by the coexistence of large-scale mantle circulation associated with plate tectonics and small-scale sublithospheric convection. In this study, conditions for the existence of smallscale convection beneath oceanic lithosphere are investigated by deriving a scaling law for the onset of convection in a fluid ...