Observations of the cell structure of salt fingers

Shirtcliffe, T. G. L.; Turner, J. S.

doi:10.1017/s002211207000085x

Cited by 81 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The convection depends upon the lateral diffusion of heat from the hotter, saltier, downward moving fingers to the cooler, fresher, upward moving ones; and if the system is to be quasi-stable, the diameter of the fingers must be about equal. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in laboratory experiments (Shirtcliffe and Turner, 1970), where the fingers appear to form in clumps; within each clump they-have a roughly square planform, as viewed from above. Therefore they will have a horizontal spatial spectrum which is strongly peaked.…”

Section: Model Two -Salt Fingersmentioning

confidence: 67%

Oceanic microstructure observed near Bermuda using a towed sensor

Magnell¹

1973

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Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain the formation of mixed layers in the ocean; the salt finger type of double-diffusive convection, in particular, has received much attention. Because of their uniquely ordered nature, salt fingers should be readily identifiable in the deep thermocline, if in fact they exist there. A relatively limited experiment could thus produce a definitive evaluation of the importance of salt finger convection in the ocean, at least in certain places and at certain times. Such an evaluation, which would help to direct future work on oceanic microstructure, was the primary objective of this thesis.A secondary and more general objective was to measure the intermittency of mixing events in the ocean; and also, by measuring the RMS gradients of temperature and salinity in such events, to evaluate directly the intensity of vertical mixing.Since a horizontally-towed sensor is essential if salt fingers are to be observed directly, a new instrument has been designed and built which can resolve fractional-centimeter structures of electrical conductivity while being towed at speeds of several knots. The design of this instrument is described in this report.The instrument has been towed in deep water near Bermuda. It is believed that salt fingers were observed in the main thermocline on several occasions; but they were so rare as to be negligible in the total vertical mixing. An analysis of one such possible salt finger event is presented.Numerous other small-scale fluctuations of electrical conductivity were observed, which can be reconciled only with a turbulent model. Intermittency statistics for these events are presented. The eddy diffusivity has been calculated from the data to be approximately 0.075 cm 2 /sec. Thesis Supervisor: Henry M. Stommel

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Section: Model Two -Salt Fingersmentioning

confidence: 67%

Oceanic microstructure observed near Bermuda using a towed sensor

Magnell¹

1973

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“…We consider a system that we have deviced ourselves, having the advantage that it costs only a few dollars and leads to structures within minutes; note that processes of this kind may take hours 16 or days. 4 The cells in our device can be observed with an ordinary light microscope; needle-like fingers growing out from the vertices of these cells are visible to the bare eye. In this system, the solvent is water, T is glycerin and S is an alcohol ethoxylate (nonionic tenside) with 12 carbons in the hydrophobic chain and 16 carbons in the hydrophilic chain.…”

Section: Experiments and Pde Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 Later on, protrusions grow as fingers from the vertices of the cells. Such a process causes deeply disposed sewage to rise upwards from the bottom of the sea 2,5 , it occurs at melting icebergs (a situation relevant to the projects of obtaining fresh water from icebergs towed to warmer coasts) [6][7][8] , it disturbs the homogeneous crystallisation of alloys 9 , and it accounts for the formation of salt fingers at the outflow of the mediterranean over the Atlantic 10,11 (situation i) in the last paragraph); also, it appears in calculations of the stellar interiors 12 and the earth's magma.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

Kotter¹,

Markus²

2002

ScienceAsia

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We investigate the solutions of partial differential equations describing a two-layered fluid system. The lower layer contains a fastly diffusing, stabilizing substance T and a slowly diffusing, destabilizing substance S. The upper layer contains only the solvent. Double-diffusive convection yields cells in agreement with experiments performed with a tenside (S) and glycerine (T) dissolved in water. Approximation of the PDEs renders scaling laws for the appearance time T em of the cells and their wavelength λ, as functions of the initial concentrations S 0 and T 0 , as well as λ as a function of time. These approximations agree well with the solutions of the PDEs.

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“…fingers, it has been detennined that the fingers are made up of square ce lls with alternating high and low index of refraction (Shirtcliffe and Turner, 1970) . Figure 9 shows the contours of index of refraction of a salt finger mode 1.…”

Section: T8smentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation into the feasibility of detecting salt fingers optically

Albro¹

1972

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Observations of the cell structure of salt fingers

Cited by 81 publications

References 5 publications

Oceanic microstructure observed near Bermuda using a towed sensor

Oceanic microstructure observed near Bermuda using a towed sensor

Untitled

Investigation into the feasibility of detecting salt fingers optically

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