Studies of convection in geophysical flows constitute an advanced and rapidly developing area of research that is relevant to problems of the natural environment. During the last decade, significant progress has been achieved in the field as a result of both experimental studies and numerical modelling. This led to the principal revision of the widely held view on buoyancy-driven turbulent flows comprising an organised mean component with superimposed chaotic turbulence. An intermediate type of motion, represented by coherent structures, has been found to play a key role in geophysical...