Lateral Mixing DRI Analysis: Submesoscale, Fine- and Microstructure Surveys of Internal Waves, Turbulence and Water-Mass Variability
Abstract
My main interests is in small-scale ocean physics processes as they contribute to stirring and mixing in order to understand and parameterize their impact on larger scales. This includes phenomena ranging from the microscale (1 cm) up to the mesoscale (10-100 km) including near-inertial and tidal internal waves, vortical mode, fronts, turbulence production and salt fingers. The objective is to better understand isopycnal stirring and mixing on horizontal length scales between 0.1-10 km (meso- submesoscale) as part of the Lateral Mixing DRI. My contribution to the 3-ship Lateral Mixing DRI June 2011 field program in the Sargasso Sea was to towyo a Rockland Scientific horizontal fine- and microstructure profiler (Hammerhead) to characterize the internal wave and turbulence fields in dye streaks and water-mass anomalies. This platform carries finescale Sea-Bird sensors for temperature, conductivity and pressure as well as Chelsea and WetLab optical sensors for chlorophyll, fluorescence and backscatter. A microthermistor rake on the nose measured temperature microstructure. Nine 5-9 h towyos were carried out over the course of the cruise, spanning lateral scales of 1 cm to O(10 km) at two sites: a low-energy big nothing site with little or no eddy field and a region of weak O(0.1f) confluence. These 2-km radius towyos followed dye streak injections and were centered within 5 m of the dye-injection target . They were embedded in larger-scale towyo surveys by Craig Lee, Jody Klymak and Murray Levine. They were centered on Lou Goodman s Gateway buoy and enclosed box surveys by Lou Goodman s T-REMUS.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA590610
Entities
People
- Eric Kunze
Organizations
- University of Washington