At great times, permeable boundaries may begin to display reflective boundary conditions. If a plume-ridge pair setup remains uniform, temperature anomaly widths remain relatively uniform for various prism sizes. Benifits fo a larger prism allow plume upwelling through a larger volume, thus delaying influences of the boundary. As a drawback, increasing cell size decreases resolution. One must be extremely cautious when interpreting data from different model setup geometries.
Boundary conditions exert influences on model calculations.
Calculations can be preformed with confidence of minimal boundary influence if all calculations are preformed with the same prism size, plume-ridge pair is located as far from the prism edges as possible, and either the plume or ridge remains fixed for all calculations. Several first-order relationships involving the Rayleigh Number have been identified. Increasing the RA requires a greater tempeature difference between upper and lower boundaries. Thus, regional and maximum plume temperatures should be expected to increase. A possible explanation for width decrease with increasing RA might focus on increased 'vigor' of the plume.