Hard thermal turbulence in Antarctic Subglacial Lakes

<p>Over 250 stable and isolated subglacial lakes exist at and close to the ice-sheet center in Antarctica. The physical conditions within subglacial lakes, and the differences between distinct lake settings, are critical to evaluating how and where life may best exist. Here, we demonstrate that upward heating by Earth’s geothermal flux provides efficient stirring of Antarctic subglacial lakes’ water, in a variety of ways related to their water depth, ice overburden and ceiling slope. We show that most lakes are in a regime of hard convective turbulence, enabling efficient mixing of nutrient- and oxygen-enriched top melt-water, which is essential for biome formation. Lakes beneath a thin (about less than 3 km) ice cover and lakes with a thick (more than 3 km) ice cover experience similarly-large velocities, but the latter have significantly larger temperature fluctuations and have a stable layer up to several tens of meters thick adjacent to the ice. We discuss the implications of hydrological conditions on the concentration of particulates in the water column.</p>

The effect of low density over the “roof of the world” Tibetan Plateau on the triggering of convection

We study the relationships between convective characteristics and air density over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) from the perspective of both climate statistics and large eddy simulation (LES). First, based on climate data, we found that there is stronger thermal turbulence and higher frequency of low cloud formation for the same surface relative humidity over the eastern and central TP compared with the eastern monsoon region of China. Second, we focus on the dynamical and thermal structure of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) with low air density. With the same surface heat flux, a decrease in air density enhances the buoyancy flux, which increases the ABL depth and moisture transport from the subcloud layer into the cloud layer. With the same low cloud cover for different air densities, the greater ABL depth for lower air density means that the average mixed-layer relative humidity with higher air density will be greater than that with low air density. Results from a subcloud convective velocity scaling scheme were compared with LES results, which indicated that the original fixed parameter values in this scheme may not adequate in case of lower relative humidity and weaker thermal turbulence in the subcloud layer.

Experimental determination of thermal turbulence effects on a propagating laser beam

The effect of turbulence on propagating laser beams has been a subject of interest since the evolution of lasers back in 1959. In this work, an inexpensive and reliable technique for producing interferograms using a point diffraction interferometer (PDI) was considered to experimentally study the turbulence effects on a laser beam propagating through air. The formed interferograms from a propagating beamwere observed and digitally processed to study the strength of atmospheric turbulence. This technique was found to be sensitive enough to detect changes in applied temperature with distance between the simulated turbulence and laser path. These preliminary findings indicated that we can use a PDI method to detect and localise atmospheric turbulence parameters. Such parameters are very important for use in the military (defence laser weapons) and this is vital for South Africa (SA) since it has natural resources, is involved in peace keeping and mediation for other countries, and hence must have a strong defence system that will be able to locate, detect and destroy incoming missiles and other threatening atmospheric systems in order to protect its environment and avoid the initiation of countermeasures on its land.