Double-diffusive transport in multicomponent vertical convection

Abstract

Motivated by the ablation of vertical ice faces in salt water, we use three-dimensional direct numerical simulations to investigate the heat and salt fluxes in two-scalar vertical convection. For parameters relevant to ice-ocean interfaces, we observe that the salinity field drives the convection and that heat is essentially transported as a passive scalar. By varying the diffusivity ratio of heat and salt (the Lewis number Le), we identify how the different molecular diffusivities affect the scalar fluxes through the system. Away from the walls, we find that the heat transport is determined by a turbulent Prandtl number of P r t ≈ 1 and that double-diffusive effects are practically negligible.However, the difference in molecular diffusivities plays an important role close to the boundaries.In the (unrealistic) case where salt diffused faster than heat, the ratio of fluxes would scale as Le 1/3 , consistent with classical nested scalar boundary layers. However, in the realistic case of faster heat diffusion (relative to salt), we observe a transition towards a Le 1/2 scaling of the ratio of the fluxes. This coincides with the thermal boundary layer width growing beyond the thickness of the viscous boundary layer. We compare our results to similar studies of sheared and double-diffusive flow under ice shelves, and discuss the implications for fluxes in large-scale ice-ocean models.