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1.
Convection in the Earth's core is driven much harder at the bottom than the top. This is partly because the adiabatic gradient steepens towards the top, partly because the spherical geometry means the area involved increases towards the top, and partly because compositional convection is driven by light material released at the lower boundary and remixed uniformly throughout the outer core, providing a volumetric sink of buoyancy. We have therefore investigated dynamo action of thermal convection in a Boussinesq fluid contained within a rotating spherical shell driven by a combination of bottom and internal heating or cooling. We first apply a homogeneous temperature on the outer boundary in order to explore the effects of heat sinks on dynamo action; we then impose an inhomogeneous temperature proportional to a single spherical harmonic Y 2² in order to explore core-mantle interactions. With homogeneous boundary conditions and moderate Rayleigh numbers, a heat sink reduces the generated magnetic field appreciably; the magnetic Reynolds number remains high because the dominant toroidal component of flow is not reduced significantly. The dipolar structure of the field becomes more pronounced as found by other authors. Increasing the Rayleigh number yields a regime in which convection inside the tangent cylinder is strongly affected by the magnetic field. With inhomogeneous boundary conditions, a heat sink promotes boundary effects and locking of the magnetic field to boundary anomalies. We show that boundary locking is inhibited by advection of heat in the outer regions. With uniform heating, the boundary effects are only significant at low Rayleigh numbers, when dynamo action is only possible for artificially low magnetic diffusivity. With heat sinks, the boundary effects remain significant at higher Rayleigh numbers provided the convection remains weak or the fluid is stably stratified at the top. Dynamo action is driven by vigorous convection at depth while boundary thermal anomalies dominate in the upper regions. This is a likely regime for the Earth's core.  相似文献   

2.
A short review of the present state of the nearly axially-symmetrical dynamo model is given. A simplified theory for hydromagnetic dynamos taking into account the forces acting in the Earth's core is considered. The role of weak core-mantle friction is discussed and a form of solution is suggested which is characterized by a large geostrophic velocity in the core and by a boundary layer of a new type. The consequences of such a model (called model Z) for the Earth's dynamo are discussed.  相似文献   

3.
A system of equations for the calculation of thermal convection in a compressible mantle with variable parameters and phase transitions is derived from the general laws of mass, momentum, and energy conservation and thermodynamic relations. Mantle convection is successively calculated in the anelastic liquid, truncated anelastic liquid, mean density, expanded Boussinesq, and Boussinesq approximations. Phase transitions are automatically taken into account with the help of effective thermodynamic parameters determined from general thermodynamic relations.  相似文献   

4.
We study magnetic field variations in numerical models of the geodynamo, with convection driven by nonuniform heat flow imposed at the outer boundary. We concentrate on cases with a boundary heat flow pattern derived from seismic anomalies in the lower mantle. At a Rayleigh number of about 100 times critical with respect to the onset of convection, the magnetic field is dominated by the axial dipole component and has a similar spectral distribution as Earth’s historical magnetic field on the core-mantle boundary (CMB). The time scales of variation of the low-order Gauss coefficients in the model agree within a factor of two with observed values. We have determined the averaging time interval needed to delineate deviations from the axial dipole field caused by the boundary heterogeneity. An average over 2000 years (the archeomagnetic time scale) is barely sufficient to reveal the long-term nondipole field. The model shows reduced scatter in virtual geomagnetic pole positions (VGPs) in the central Pacific, consistent with the weak secular variation observed in the historical field. Longitudinal drift of magnetic field structures is episodic and differs between regions. Westward magnetic drift is most pronounced beneath the Atlantic in our model. Although frozen flux advection by the large-scale flow is generally insufficient to explain the magnetic drift rates, there are some exceptions. In particular, equatorial flux spot pairs produced by expulsion of toroidal magnetic field are rapidly advected westward in localized equatorial jets which we interpret as thermal winds.  相似文献   

5.
A simple new method is described for extracting, from magnetic observations taken at Earth's surface, the vertical growth rate of vertical motion, ?u/?r, at special isolated points on the top surface of Earth's liquid core. The technique utilizes only the radial component of the frozen-flux induction equation and it requires information only on the radial magnetic field, Br, its horizontal gradient, and its secular variations, ?Br/?t, at the core-mantle boundary.  相似文献   

6.
With the prospect of studying the relevance of the topographic core-mantle coupling to the variations of the Earth’s rotation and also its applicability to constraining the core surface flow, we investigate the variability of the topographic torque estimated by using core surface flow models accompanied by (a) uncertainty due to the non-uniqueness problem in the flow inversion, and (b) variance originating in that of geomagnetic secular variation models employed in the inversion. Various flow models and their variances are estimated by inverting prescribed geomagnetic models at the epoch 1980. The subsequent topographic torque is then calculated by using a core-mantle boundary topography model obtained by seismic tomography. The calculated axial and equatorial torques are found subject to the variability of order 1019 and 1020  Nm, respectively, on which (b) is more effective than (a). The variability of the torque is attributed even to (a) and (b) of the large-scale flows (degrees 2 and 3). Yet, it still seems unlikely for the decadal polar motion with the observed amplitude to be excited exclusively by the equatorial topographic torque associated with any of reasonable core surface flow models. It is also confirmed that, with the topography model adopted here, the axial topographic torque on a rigid annulus in the core (coaxial with the Earth’s rotation axis) associated with any of reasonable flow models is larger by two orders of magnitude than the plausible inertial torque on such cylinders. This implies that any core surface flow model consistent with the topographic coupling does not exist, unless the topography model is appropriately modified. Nevertheless, the topographic coupling might provide not only a weak constraint for explaining the decadal LOD variations, but also the possibility to probe the core surface flow and the core dynamics.  相似文献   

7.
Although vigorous mantle convection early in the thermal history of the Earth is shown to be capable of removing several times the latent heat content of the core, we are able to construct a thermal evolution model of the Earth in which the core does not solidify. The large amount of energy removed from the model Earth's core by mantle convection is supplied by the internal energy of the core which is assumed to cool from an initial high temperature given by the silicate melting temperature at the core-mantle boundary. For the smaller terrestrial planets, the iron and silicate melting temperatures at the core-mantle boundaries are more comparable than for the Earth, and the cores of these planets may not possess enough internal energy to prevent core solidification by mantle convection. Our models incorporate temperature-dependent mantle viscosity and radiogenic heat sources in the mantle. The Earth models are constrained by the present surface heat flux and mantle viscosity. Internal heat sources produce only about 55% of the Earth model's present surface heat flow.  相似文献   

8.
The effects of adiabatic cooling on the convection in the anelastic model of the liquid core of the Earth are considered. It is shown that even minor adiabatic cooling causes significant changes in the pattern of the convection, shifting the peak in the convection intensity to the inner part of the core. Just as in the Boussinesq model, both direct and inverse kinetic energy cascades are simultaneously present, and the direct cascade of entropy is observed.  相似文献   

9.
The feasibility of a precessionally driven dynamo is investigated. The relative orientation of the angular-velocity vectors of the mantle and core and the precession vector of the earth are determined from a torque balance. The core and mantle are acted upon by separate gravitational torques and mutual interaction torques resulting from pressure, viscous and magnetic stresses at the core-mantle interface. The viscous and magnetic torques are determined using the results of a detailed analysis of the Ekman-Hartmann and magnetic diffusion layers generated at the core-mantle interface by the misalignment of the mantle and core angular-velocity vectors. The dissipative torques are found to be weaker by a factor of 10?4 than those estimated by Malkus (1968) and Stacey (1973), resulting in only 3.5 · 107 W being extracted from the rotational kinetic energy of the earth by these mechanisms. Furthermore, it is found that all of this energy is dissipated in the boundary layers at the core-mantle interface and none is available to drive the geodynamo.  相似文献   

10.
Plumes rising from the core–mantle boundary (CMB) are often assumed to transport most, or all, of the heat conducted across the CMB. Here this assumption is explored using numerical convection models in idealized geometries that lead to a single plume under steady-state or near steady state conditions. Plume heat transport is calculated for different internal heating rates using two methods and compared to the CMB heat flux. For these conditions, it is found that the heat flux transported by plumes in the upper mantle is only a fraction of the core heat flux and, thus, core heat flow estimates derived from observed hotspots could be multiplied by a factor of several.  相似文献   

11.
We are using a three-dimensional convection-driven numerical dynamo model without hyperdiffusivity to study the characteristic structure and time variability of the magnetic field in dependence of the Rayleigh number (Ra) for values up to 40 times supercritical. We also compare a variety of ways to drive the convection and basically find two dynamo regimes. At low Ra, the magnetic field at the surface of the model is dominated by the non-reversing axial dipole component. At high Ra, the dipole part becomes small in comparison to higher multipole components. At transitional values of Ra, the dynamo vacillates between the dipole-dominated and the multipolar regime, which includes excursions and reversals of the dipole axis. We discuss, in particular, one model of chemically driven convection, where for a suitable value of Ra, the mean dipole moment and the temporal evolution of the magnetic field resemble the known properties of the Earth’s field from paleomagnetic data.  相似文献   

12.
A recent dynamo model for Mercury assumes that the upper part of the planet's fluid core is thermally stably stratified because the temperature gradient at the core–mantle boundary is subadiabatic. Vigorous convection driven by a superadiabatic temperature gradient at the boundary of a growing solid inner core and by the associated release of light constituents takes place in a deep sub-layer and powers a dynamo. These models have been successful at explaining the observed weak global magnetic field at Mercury's surface. They have been based on the concept of codensity, which combines thermal and compositional sources of buoyancy into a single variable by assuming the same diffusivity for both components. Actual diffusivities in planetary cores differ by a large factor. To overcome the limitation of the codensity model, we solve two separate transport equations with different diffusivities in a double diffusive dynamo model for Mercury. When temperature and composition contribute comparable amounts to the buoyancy force, we find significant differences to the codensity model. In the double diffusive case convection penetrates the upper layer with a net stable density stratification in the form of finger convection. Compared to the codensity model, this enhances the poloidal magnetic field in the nominally stable layer and outside the core, where it becomes too strong compared to observation. Intense azimuthal flow in the stable layer generates a strong axisymmetric toroidal field. We find in double diffusive models a surface magnetic field of the observed strength when compositional buoyancy plays an inferior role for driving the dynamo, which is the case when the sulphur concentration in Mercury's core is only a fraction of a percent.  相似文献   

13.
Large eddy simulations (LES) of two-dimensional turbulent convection within the anelastic approximation are presented for Rayleigh number Ra?=?109, Prandtl number Pr?=?1 with free-slip boundary conditions. Various subgrid-scale (SGS) models are investigated such as a similarity model, a dynamic similarity model, a dynamic eddy-viscosity model, a hyperdiffusion model and a hybrid model (dynamic similarity hyperdiffusion model). To study the effects of density stratification on the models, we have also carried out simulations for a Boussinesq flow. The SGS models are compared to direct numerical simulation (DNS) data on the basis of kinetic energy and entropy variance spectra, mean entropy profiles, r.m.s. entropy profiles and r.m.s. kinetic energy density profiles. The results show that for the Boussinesq flow, all the SGS models agree fairly well with the high resolution DNS data. However, for the strongly density-stratified flow, only the hyperdiffusion and the hybrid model show good performance.  相似文献   

14.
15.
Paleomagnetic data indicate that there is a north-south asymmetry in the time-averaged magnetic field and that there are small but significant differences between the normal and reverse polarity states. The geographical variation is most likely due to spatial variation in the boundary conditions at the core-mantle interface. The difference in the magnetic fields of the reverse and normal polarity states can be modeled in terms of a “standing field”. The paleomagnetic data are insufficient to determine whether or not this “standing field” is of core origin. However, consideration of mechanisms, including thermoelectric currents, indicates that there probably are important differences in core processes between the two polarity states. At first glance this interpretation is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the magnetic induction equation is antisymmetric with respect to the magnetic field. A way around this problem is the possibility that only certain transitions are allowed between acceptable eigenstates in dynamo models of the Earth's magnetic field.  相似文献   

16.
Non-linear Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a fluid layer is considered as a model of convection in the Earth's upper mantle. Previous studies have shown that when the temperature is held fixed at one of the boundaries of the layer, convection takes place in cells of width of the order of the layer depth or less. We investigate the effects of a different thermal boundary condition, in which the flux of heat is held fixed on both layer boundaries; then if this flux is just greater than that required for the onset of convection, motion takes place on horizontal scales much greater than the layer depth. An analytical treatment of the equations, based on an expansion in the depth-to-width ratio of the cells, shows that cells of a definite horizontal scale are the fastest growing according to linearised theory, but that these cells are unstable to ones of larger wavelength than themselves. Thus the dominant wavelength lengthens with time. The results hold whether the heat flux is generated internally of comes from beneath the layer. These results produce flow patterns similar to those found when the heat flux is much greater than the critical value. The results have important consequences for the understanding of mantle convection.  相似文献   

17.
Recognition that the cooling of the core is accomplished by conduction of heat into a thermal boundary layer (D″) at the base of the mantle, partly decouples calculations of the thermal histories of the core and mantle. Both are controlled by the temperature-dependent rheology of the mantle, but in different ways. Thermal parameters of the Earth are more tightly constrained than hitherto by demanding that they satisfy both core and mantle histories. We require evolution from an early state, in which the temperatures of the top of the core and the base of the mantle were both very close to the mantle solidus, to the present state in which a temperature increment, estimated to be ~ 800 K, has developed across D″. The thermal history is not very dependent upon the assumption of Newtonian or non-Newtonian mantle rheology. The thermal boundary layer at the base of the mantle (i.e., D″) developed within the first few hundred million years and the temperature increment across it is still increasing slowly. In our preferred model the present temperature at the top of the core is 3800 K and the mantle temperature, extrapolated to the core boundary without the thermal boundary layer, is 3000 K. The mantle solidus is 3860 K. These temperatures could be varied within quite wide limits without seriously affecting our conclusions. Core gravitational energy release is found to have been remarkably constant at ~ 3 × 1011 W. nearly 20% of the core heat flux, for the past 3 × 109 y, although the total terrestrial heat flux has decreased by a factor of 2 or 3 in that time. This gravitational energy can power the “chemical” dynamo in spite of a core heat flux that is less than that required by conduction down an adiabatic gradient in the outer core; part of the gravitational energy is used to redistribute the excess heat back into the core, leaving 1.8 × 1011 W to drive the dynamo. At no time was the dynamo thermally driven and the present radioactive heating in the core is negligibly small. The dynamo can persist indefinitely into the future; available power 1010 y from now is estimated to be 0.3 × 1011 W if linear mantle rheology is assumed or more if mantle rheology is non-linear. The assumption that the gravitational constant decreases with time imposes an implausible rate of decrease in dynamo energy. With conventional thermodynamics it also requires radiogenic heating of the mantle considerably in excess of the likely content of radioactive elements.  相似文献   

18.
Abstract

To model penetrative convection at the base of a stellar convection zone we consider two plane parallel, co-rotating Boussinesq layers coupled at their fluid interface. The system is such that the upper layer is unstable to convection while the lower is stable. Following the method of Kondo and Unno (1982, 1983) we calculate critical Rayleigh numbers Rc for a wide class of parameters. Here, Rc is typically much less than in the case of a single layer, although the scaling Rc~T2/3 as T → ∞ still holds, where T is the usual Taylor number. With parameters relevant to the Sun the helicity profile is discontinuous at the interface, and dominated by a large peak in a thin boundary layer beneath the convecting region. In reality the distribution is continuous, but the sharp transition associated with a rapid decline in the effective viscosity in the overshoot region is approximated by a discontinuity here. This source of helicity and its relation to an alpha effect in a mean-field dynamo is especially relevant since it is a generally held view that the overshoot region is the location of magnetic field generation in the Sun.  相似文献   

19.
The behavior of the main magnetic field components during a polarity transition is investigated using the α2-dynamo model for magnetic field generation in a turbulent core. It is shown that rapid reversals of the dipole field occur when the helicity, a measure of correlation between turbulent velocity and vorticity, changes sign. Two classes of polarity transitions are possible. Within the first class, termed component reversals, the dipole field reverses but the toroidal field does not. Within the second class, termed full reversals, both dipole and toroidal fields reverse. Component reversals result from long term fluctuations in core helicity; full reversals result from short term fluctuations. A set of time-evolution equations are derived which govern the dipole field behavior during an idealized transition. Solutions to these equations exhibit transitions in which the dipole remains axial while its intensity decays rapidly toward zero, and is regenerated with reversed polarity. Assuming an electrical conductivity of 3 × 105 mho m?1 for the fluid core, the time interval required to complete the reversal process can be as short as 7500 years. This time scale is consistent with paleomagnetic observations of the duration of reversals. A possible explanation of the cause of reversals is proposed, in which the core's net helicity fluctuates in response to fluctuations in the level of turbulence produced by two competing energy sources—thermal convection and segregation of the inner core. Symmetry considerations indicate that, in each hemisphere, helicity generated by heat loss at the core-mantle boundary may have the opposite sign of helicity generated by energy release at the inner core boundary. Random variations in rates of energy release can cause the net helicity and the α-effect to change sign occasionally, provoking a field reversal. In this model, energy release by inner core formation tends to destabilize stationary dynamo action, causing polarity reversals.  相似文献   

20.
A model of thermally driven dynamo in the Boussinesq approximation in the spherical shell with the free rotating inner core is considered. To solve equations we use a new in dynamo modeling control volume technique (for details of this method for hydrodynamics see Patankar, 1980). The main advantage of this method over previous attempts to solve magnetohydrodynamics equations in the spherical grids is that no filtering of high harmonics in the pole regions is needed. We present the results of simulations for the self-consistent dynamo system evolution over the diffusion time and longer periods. Different ways of stabilizations of magnetohydrodynamics equations, when convective terms are of the same order (or larger) as conductive ones, are considered.  相似文献   

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