Turbulent convection in subglacial lakes

Subglacial lakes are isolated, low-temperature and high-pressure water environments hidden under ice sheets. Here, we use two-dimensional direct numerical simulations in order to investigate the characteristic temperature fluctuations and velocities in freshwater subglacial lakes as functions of the ice overburden pressure, pi, the water depth, h, and the geothermal flux, F. Geothermal heating is the unique forcing mechanism as we consider a flat ice–water interface. Subglacial lakes are fully convective when pi is larger than the critical pressure p∗≈2848 dbar, but self-organize into a lower convective bulk and an upper stably stratified layer when pi