We are concerned with the so-called Boussinesq equations with partial viscosity. These equations consist of the ordinary incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with a forcing term which is transported with no dissipation by the velocity field. Such equations are simplified models for geophysics (in which case the forcing term is proportional either to the temperature, or to the salinity or to the density).

In the present paper, we show that the standard theorems for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations may be extended to Boussinesq system despite the fact that there is no dissipation or decay at large time for the forcing term.

More precisely, we state the global existence of finite energy weak solutions in any dimension, and global well-posedness in dimension $N\ge3$ for small data. In the two-dimensional case, the finite energy global solutions are shown to be unique for any data in $L^2(\mathbb{R}^2)$.