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Numerical simulations of the three-dimensionalization of a shear flow in radiatively forced cold water below the density maximum

Andrew P. Grace1,*, Marek Stastna1, K. G. Lamb1, and K. Andrea Scott2

  • 1Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
  • 2Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada

  • *andrew.grace@uwaterloo.ca
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 023501 – Published 7 February, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.023501

Abstract

Recently the dynamics of flows beneath ice cover has garnered much interest in the environmental fluid dynamics community. Of particular importance is understanding how heat introduced via solar radiation is transported within a body of cold fresh water (characteristic temperatures are below the temperature of maximum density), and how a subsurface current affects this process. In this study we present high-resolution numerical simulations of the interaction between cold water convection and a parallel shear flow. The results of this paper show that for a sufficiently strong shear current, the growth phase of instabilities generated by volumetric thermal forcing (which represents solar radiation) is nearly two-dimensional and that the transition to more vigorous three-dimensional motion is initialized by baroclinic production of vorticity by convective instabilities followed by a rapid increase in streamwise vorticity generated by vortex tilting and stretching. We describe how this process is modified by differences in shear strength and thermal forcing attenuation length.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 023501– Published 7 February, 2022
  • Received 4 October 2021
  • Accepted 5 January 2022
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