Mixing, Fine-Structure and Internal Waves Near Shallow-Summit Seamounts

Abstract

LONG TERM GOALS. The long term goals of our research are to identify and evaluate key processes responsible for the generation and decay of oceanic turbulence. Intermittent turbulent mixing in coastal and deep oceans and associated background meso-scale dynamics are studied by comprehensive analyses of special field measurements as well as using theoretical and numerical modeling. OBJECTIVES. The prime objective of the current work is to acquire a better understanding of the oceanic fine-structure generated by turbulent mixing and internal-wave dynamics in regions of abrupt topography of coastal and deep oceans. This study is important, in particular, for modeling and calculation of vertical transports through the highly-stratified seasonal pycnocline in mid-latitudes. Evaluation of the influence of boundary mixing on the basin-averaged turbulent diffusivity is also one of our major objectives. It is expected to develop a parameterization for turbulent mixing in rotating, stratified, shear flows that can be used to formulate a model for thermohaline fine-structure formation in the pycnocline due to forcing at oceanic boundaries.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 30, 1997
Accession Number
ADA634801

Entities

People

  • Harindra Fernando
  • Iossif Lozovatsky

Organizations

  • Arizona State University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Black Sea
  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • Buoyancy
  • Deep Oceans
  • Dynamics
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Internal Waves
  • Layers
  • Oceans
  • Reynolds Number
  • Richardson Number
  • Seamounts
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Turbulence
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Waves

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers