The Barostrat Instability: the baroclinic instability in a rotating stratified fluid

International audienceOur project aims to describe the baroclinic instability that destabilizes an initially stratified layer of fluid. Classically, this instability is studied using pure fluid. Here, the originality of our experiment comes from the use of a layer of water initially stratified with salt. Before rotation is started, double convection sets in within the stratified layer with a strongly nonhomogeneous pattern consisting of a double diffusive staircase at the bottom of the container in the very dense water layer and a shallow convective cell in the top surface layer. These two layers are separated by a motionless stably stratified zone. As radial motions take place due to the presence of these convective cells, the action of the Coriolis force generates strong zonal flows as soon as rotation is started. Then, above a rotation rate threshold, the baroclinic instability destabilizes the flow in the top shallow convective layer, generating a ring of pancake vortices sitting above the stably stratified layer. Therefore, this laboratory arrangement mimics the presence of a stratosphere above a baroclinic unstable troposphere. Infrared camera images measure the temperature distributions at the water surface and PIV velocity maps describe the wavy flow pattern at different altitudes. In some regimes, some wave trains have been detected. These waves might be traces of Internal Gravity Waves generated by the fluid motions in the baroclinic unstable layer