Submesoscale Routes to Lateral Mixing in the Ocean
Abstract
Our long-term goal is 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 is testing hypothesis 3 of the white paper Scalable Lateral Mixing and Coherent Turbulence: Non-quasigeostrophic, 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 submesoscale processes facilitate cross-front exchange. Our approach is to run a number of process studies using a three-dimensional non-hydrostatic Process Study Ocean Model (PSOM, Mahadevan, 2006; Mahadevan and Tandon, 2006). The typical model resolution for resolving submesoscales is about 1 km in the horizontal. We have examined processes in domains approximately 100 km x 200 km and 100 km x 500 km.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA590444
Entities
People
- Amala Mahadevan
- Amit Tandon
Organizations
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution