Effects of Granulation upon Larger-Scale Convection

Abstract

We examine the role of small-scale granulation in helping to drive supergranulation and even larger scales of convection. The granulation is modeled as localized cooling events introduced at the upper boundary of a 3-D simulation of compressible convection in a rotating spherical shell segment. With a sufficient number of stochastic cooling events compared to uniform cooling, we find that supergranular scales are realized, along with a differential rotation that becomes increasingly solar-like.