Submesoscale Routes to Lateral Mixing in the Ocean
Abstract
Long-term goals are to determine whether lateral mixing at O(1-10 km) scales is due to a balanced or unbalanced downscale cascade from the mesoscale, or due to local vertical mixing by internal waves and surface forcing. Our work will test hypothesis 3 of the white paper "Scalable Lateral Mixing and Coherent Turbulence": Non-QG, submesoscale instabilities feed a forward cascade of energy, scalar and Ertel PV variance, which enhances both isopycnal and diapycnal mixing. Related hypotheses are that submesoscale variability is associated with coherent structures and anisotropic mixing. Further, submesoscale processes are inherently vertical, as well as horizontal, and that submesoscale processes facilitate cross-front exchange. Our approach is to run a number of process studies using a three-dimensional non-hydrostatic model written by Amala Mahadevan (PI from Boston University e.g. Mahadevan and Tandon 2006). The typical model resolution for resolving submesoscales is about 1 km in the horizontal. We examined processes in a domain approximately 100 km x 200 km, but recently, we have improved the model to run on much larger domains (approximately 500 km x 1000 km) at the same horizontal resolution.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA542449
Entities
People
- Amala Mahadevan
- Amit Tandon
Organizations
- Boston University