Anisotropy of salt fingers

Abstract

A laboratory experiment was set up in which the vertical temperature and conductivity profiles through salt fingers were measured and compared with horizontal profiles of the same quantities. It was found that the vertical component of the temperature gradient in salt fingers had few zero crossings, so was quite different from the temperature gradient that would result from turbulence. On the other hand, the conductivity gradient (which is dominated by changes in salt concentration in our experiments) had numerous zero crossings even when the salt fingers were relatively weak. -from Author