Lateral Mixing

Abstract

Existing high resolution regional models typically resolve the mean vertical structure of the upper ocean boundary layer. Physically - based parameterizations of vertical fluxes make it possible to account for subgrid mixing at length scales smaller than the layer depth, but no specialized parameterization is used to represent the dynamics of horizontal mixing below the O(1) km - O(10) km resolution scale. We aim to determine the physical limitations of subgrid parameterization on these scales. These projects address the following questions: What physics govern horizontal and vertical mixing in the presence of horizontal variability on the 1 - 10 km scale? What is the relative importance of horizontal and vertical mixing in determining the structure of the boundary layer? What physics should be included to improve parameterizations?

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 30, 2014
Accession Number
ADA623066

Entities

People

  • Eric A. D'Asaro

Organizations

  • University of Washington

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Tracking
  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • Buoyancy
  • Frequency
  • Gulf Stream
  • High Resolution
  • Kinetic Energy
  • Layers
  • Mixing
  • Models
  • Oceans
  • Oscillation
  • Physics
  • Sea Surface Temperature
  • Surface Temperature
  • Surveys

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Coastal Oceanography
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)