Orateur
Description
One of the most characteristic flow in the atmosphere is the eye of tropical cyclones. Yet, its dynamic formation process is still poorly understood. This study focuses on a small number of parameters to improve our fundamental understanding of these dynamics. We have set up an experimental model in air to analyze the conditions for the formation of the eye of a cyclone in dry rotating convection. The setup consists of a rotating cylindrical tank, heated from below and maintained at a constant temperature on the side. The flow is measured using PIV in a vertical plane near the rotation axis. Within a well-defined parameter space, we observe a persistent descending flow along the rotation axis. Owing to the more extreme control parameters explored here compared with previous studies, the resulting eye is turbulent and non-axisymmetric. Despite this complexity, the eye formation is a robust feature of this idealised dry cyclone, providing that the Rossby number lies !
within a finite range