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Cell formation in thin spherical shells with lateral temperature gradient between polar and equatorial regions.

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The investigation of convection in spherical geometry with lateral temperature gradients gets more and more important for exo-planetary research. In particular, the case of externally heated equatorial regions and cooled polar regions, under the assumption of a overall convectively unstable radial stratification, is of great interest. These specific atmospheric boundary conditions are assumed to be in various exo-planets and even in Uranus and Neptune, where the planetary interior provides a constant heat flux. In this work, an extension to a more complicated system is done, where the additional temperature
gradient in radial direction leads to complex cell formation. In particular, we investigate the dependence of the rotation, the internal heat flux and the gap width on the overall heat transfer, on the formation and temporal evolution of atmospheric cells and the stability of global structures. Additionally we present a fast method in analyzing turbulent flows with spectral methods. The investigation of flows with high resolution visualizations is time consuming and not accurate enough. The kinetic energy spectrum gives more precisely information and is available at each time step of the simulation without transformation from spectral into real space.

Author(s):

Christoph Egbers    
BTU Cottbus
Germany

Florian Zaussinger    
BTU-Cottbus
Germany