Anomalous response of stratified fluid to forcing

The time-independent disturbances induced by nonuniformly distributed surface shear stress in a binary fluid (salt water) are analyzed in the linear approximation. It is shown that correct treatment of two scalar fields (stratified background temperature and salinity distributions) may lead to counterintuitive qualitative predictions even if the thermal and salt diffusivities are equal. In particular, when stable salinity stratification is imposed on stable temperature stratification, both the amplitude and depth of the disturbance may substantially increase rather than decrease (contrary to intuitive expectations). A previously unknown mechanism of convective instability is revealed for a stable density-stratified binary fluid