Finescale Shear and Strain in the Thermocline,
Abstract
Early studies of the temperature, density, and velocity fields in the sea were performed from a hydrographic perspective. The expectation was that one could chart the oceans structurally. The carts, once drawn, would remain valid. The tools of hydrography were the reversing thermometer and the Nansen bottle. These yielded a picture of the ocean interior on vertical scales of hundreds of meters, horizontal scales of tens of kilometers. From very early on it was appreciated that smaller scale phenomena were active in the ocean interior. Yet it was difficult to infer the role these small scale motions played in maintaining the hydrographic fields. With contemporary sensors far clearer pictures of the small-scale oceanic fields are emerging. Yet the difficulty in quantifying the interaction with the hydrographic-scale ocean remains. In this work we concentrate on motions of vertical scale 3-50 m. Over this range, the scalar fields transition from highly skewed to nearly Gaussian behavior. The objective of this work is to quantify this transition in a statistical sense, with a particular focus on strain, shear and Richardson number.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1993
- Accession Number
- ADP008728
Entities
People
- Robert Pinkel
- Steven P. Anderson
Organizations
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography