Rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection is a simple model system used to study the interplay of buoyant forcing and rotation. Many recent studies have focused on the geostrophic regime of turbulent rotating convection where the principal balance of forces is between the Coriolis force and the pressure gradient. This regime is believed to be representative of conditions in geophysical and astrophysical flows. We hope to be able to extrapolate findings from laboratory experiments and numerical simulations towards these large-scale natural flows. In this paper I sketch the phase diagram of the geostrophic regime of rotating convection, put experimental and numerical studies in their place in these diagrams and discuss the partitioning into subranges characterised by different flow structures and heat transfer scaling. I also discuss some complications faced by experimentalists, such as constraints on the dimensions of the convection cell, wall modes near the sidewall and centrifugal buoyancy.

旋转瑞利-贝纳德对流是一个简单的模型系统，用于研究浮力和旋转的相互作用。最近的许多研究集中在湍流旋转对流的地转状态，其中力的主要平衡在科里奥利力和压力梯度之间。据信这种制度是地球物理和天体物理流动条件的代表。我们希望能够将实验室实验和数值模拟的结果推论到这些大规模自然流动中。在本文中，我绘制了旋转对流地转状态的相图，在这些图中将实验和数值研究放在了它们的位置，并讨论了划分为具有不同流动结构和传热比例的子区域的过程。