Instability II

Abstract

Abstract A rotating fluid heated from below becomes unstable when the temperature differences in the fluid are sufficiently large. This chapter starts with a review of the non-rotating case, i.e. of Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a thin fluid layer. This is followed by a detailed discussion of rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection, where a critical distinction has to be made between the case where the instability is non-oscillatory and that where it is oscillatory. The chapter closes with a discussion of the thermal instability which occurs in a rotating annulus, often called the ‘Busse annulus’. This results in a form of thermally driven Rossby wave.