Turbulent Mixing in the Upper Layers of the Bay of Bengal: Monsoon Research Program
Abstract
The Bay of Bengal is rather unique in that its upper layer structure is heavily influenced by huge fresh water influx from the rivers draining the Indian subcontinent and copious rainfall during thesummer monsoon. A strong but shallow halocline formed due to this" fresh water influx affects turbulent mixing in the upper layers, and therefore the air-sea exchange and the upper ocean heat conten""t. Ocean circulation models have difficulty reproducing the upper ocean structure and sea surface temperature (SST) in the Bay, part"ly because of the complications due to the presence of fresh water near the surface. Because of the coupled nature of the ocean and" the atmosphere, this in turn affects the intra-seasonal oscillations during the Asiatic summer monsoon and degrades predictive skil"l of atmospheric models at weekly to monthly time scales. The Monsoon Intra-Seasonal Oscillations/Bay of Bengal (MISO/BoB) DRI provi"des an excellent opportunity to collect relevant data, gain a better understanding of prevalent processes and refine turbulent mixin""g models, so that ocean models of the Bay can be made more skillful. Knowledge thus gained can be used to improve the prediction ski""ll of atmospheric models at intra-seasonal time scales. We request funding to participate in the DRI, assist in collection and analy""sis of relevant data,and use the data and knowledge gained to improve turbulent mixing models of the upper ocean in the Bay of Benga"l. Subsequent efforts will focus on incorporation of the improved upper ocean mixing model into Navy ocean models such as ROMS and r"egional ocean and coupled models of the Bay of Bengal/North Indian Ocean, with the goal of improving model skill at intra-seasonal t"ime scales of weeks to months. We also intend to continue refinement of second moment closure-based turbulence models to better represent processes such as double-diffusive mixing and counter-gradient transport of turbulence during convective mixing. We plan to wo"rk closely and synergistically with both US PIs in the MISO-BoB DRI and Indian PIs in their Monsoon Research Program (MRP), in plann""ing and execution of BoB observational campaigns, as well as modeling the upper layers of the Bay of Bengal, for incorporation into" regional ocean and ocean-wave atmosphere coupled models
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 07, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712716
Entities
People
- Lakshmi Kantha
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Regents of the University of Colorado
- United States Navy