An experimental study of the morphological evolution of thermal plumes in turbulent thermal convection is presented. Individual sheetlike plumes are extracted and their area, circumference, and “heat content” are found to all exhibit log-normal distributions. As the sheetlike plumes move across the plate they collide and convolute into spiraling swirls. These swirls then spiral away from the plates to become mushroomlike plumes which are accompanied by strong vertical vorticity. The measured profiles of plume numbers and of vertical vorticity quantify the morphological transition of sheetlike plumes to mushroomlike ones and the mixing and merging or clustering of mushroomlike plumes. The fluctuating vorticity is found to have the same exponential distribution and scaling behavior as the fluctuating temperature.

• Received 1 September 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.074501