Numerical Simulations of Core Convection with Boundary Topography

Details Numerical Simulations of Core Convection with Boundary Topography Numerical Simulations of Core Convection with Boundary Topography

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.p31b1248c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #P31B-1248

Statistics

Computation

[0545] Computational Geophysics / Modeling, [5724] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Interiors

Scientific paper

Seismological studies indicate that topographic undulations up to 10 km in amplitude may be present at the Earth's core-mantle boundary (CMB). The importance of such topography on outer core fluid dynamics and the associated core-mantle topographic torques have long been debated in the deep Earth geophysics community. However, few fully nonlinear fluid dynamical investigations have been performed. Towards this end, we have developed a two-dimensional (2D), quasigeostrophic numerical model to investigate the nonlinear interaction of flow in the outer core with topography on the CMB. The model solves for thermally driven flow in an equatorial plane outside the Earth's core tangent cylinder, while incorporating the effects of boundary topography. The merit of the 2D quasigeostrophic approach is that it allows us to bridge the gap between the moderate parameter values presently accessible to three-dimensional numerical simulations and the more extreme values characteristic of Earth's core. We are presently initiating a broad suite of simulations to scale the effects of boundary topography to core conditions. With these simulations, we seek to determine the CMB topographic patterns and amplitudes necessary to significantly affect core fluid dynamics and core-mantle coupling.

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