Thermodynamics/Dynamics Coupling in Weakly Compressible Turbulent Stratified Fluids

Figure 2

Experimental setup of an experiment showed to the author by Peter Rhines during a visit to his GFD Laboratory in Seattle in June 2008, suggesting that compressibility effects increase with the degree of turbulent in stably stratified fluids. An Erlenmeyer flask is filled up with water at room temperature. A vertical stratification is then created by bringing the upper part of the water near boiling point, and a magnetic stirrer is dropped in the fluid. The top of the flask is then sealed up with a cork through which a thin glass tube is inserted in order to magnify the variations of the air-water interface. In laminar conditions (a), the fluid is near resting conditions, and the air-water interface moves downward very slowly as the result of molecular diffusion and/or radiative cooling. Activating the magnetic stirrer generates stratified turbulence (b) that results in the spectacular drop of the air-water interface, most likely as the result of the well-known contraction upon mixing effect that is due to the temperature dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient.