Quasi-Geostrophic Rayleigh-B'enard Convection on the tilted f-plane

In this presentation, we consider rotationally constrained thermal convection on the tilted f-plane. Recent investigations have established the existence of a dual turbulent cascade - a direct enstrophy cascade to small scales and a nonlocal inverse cascade to domain scales. The topology of large scale structures is found to be dependent on both the strength of the thermal forcing and the latitudinal location of the local f-plane. Specifically, simulations of quasigeostrophic Rayleigh-Benard convection identify three classes of large scale condensates: large scale vortices, large scale zonal jets, and a regime of bi-stability capturing both. This is accomplished via novel reformulation that represents the governing fluid equations in a non-orthogonal coordinate system that aligns the upright coordinate with the axis of rotation as opposed to gravity. In this talk we detail the dynamical mechanism driving the inverse cascade with a focus on anisotropies in the stresses that play a critical role.