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  • 1
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    Mesoscale eddy–internal wave coupling. Part II : energetics and results from PolyMode (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 789-801, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4039.1.
    Description: The issue of internal wave–mesoscale eddy interactions is revisited. Previous observational work identified the mesoscale eddy field as a possible source of internal wave energy. Characterization of the coupling as a viscous process provides a smaller horizontal transfer coefficient than previously obtained, with vh 50 m2 s−1 in contrast to νh 200–400 m2 s−1, and a vertical transfer coefficient bounded away from zero, with νυ + (f2/N2)Kh 2.5 ± 0.3 × 10−3 m2 s−1 in contrast to νυ + (f2/N2)Kh = 0 ± 2 × 10−2 m2 s−1. Current meter data from the Local Dynamics Experiment of the PolyMode field program indicate mesoscale eddy–internal wave coupling through horizontal interactions (i) is a significant sink of eddy energy and (ii) plays an O(1) role in the energy budget of the internal wave field.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 2
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    Mesoscale eddy-internal wave coupling. Part I : symmetry, wave capture, and results from the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 2556-2574, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3666.1.
    Description: Vertical profiles of horizontal velocity obtained during the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE) provided the first published estimates of the high vertical wavenumber structure of horizontal velocity. The data were interpreted as being representative of the background internal wave field, and thus, despite some evidence of excess downward energy propagation associated with coherent near-inertial features that was interpreted in terms of atmospheric generation, these data provided the basis for a revision to the Garrett and Munk spectral model. These data are reinterpreted through the lens of 30 years of research. Rather than representing the background wave field, atmospheric generation, or even near-inertial wave trapping, the coherent high wavenumber features are characteristic of internal wave capture in a mesoscale strain field. Wave capture represents a generalization of critical layer events for flows lacking the spatial symmetry inherent in a parallel shear flow or isolated vortex.
    Description: Salary support for this analysis was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Ocean dynamics ; Internal waves ; Ocean variability
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 3
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    Oceanic internal-wave field : theory of scale-invariant spectra (2011)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 2605–2623, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4132.1.
    Description: Steady scale-invariant solutions of a kinetic equation describing the statistics of oceanic internal gravity waves based on wave turbulence theory are investigated. It is shown in the nonrotating scale-invariant limit that the collision integral in the kinetic equation diverges for almost all spectral power-law exponents. These divergences come from resonant interactions with the smallest horizontal wavenumbers and/or the largest horizontal wavenumbers with extreme scale separations. A small domain is identified in which the scale-invariant collision integral converges and numerically find a convergent power-law solution. This numerical solution is close to the Garrett–Munk spectrum. Power-law exponents that potentially permit a balance between the infrared and ultraviolet divergences are investigated. The balanced exponents are generalizations of an exact solution of the scale-invariant kinetic equation, the Pelinovsky–Raevsky spectrum. A small but finite Coriolis parameter representing the effects of rotation is introduced into the kinetic equation to determine solutions over the divergent part of the domain using rigorous asymptotic arguments. This gives rise to the induced diffusion regime. The derivation of the kinetic equation is based on an assumption of weak nonlinearity. Dominance of the nonlocal interactions puts the self-consistency of the kinetic equation at risk. However, these weakly nonlinear stationary states are consistent with much of the observational evidence.
    Description: This research is supported by NSF CMG Grants 0417724, 0417732 and 0417466. YL is also supported by NSF DMS Grant 0807871 and ONR Award N00014-09-1-0515.
    Keywords: Waves ; Oceanic ; Internal waves ; Spectral analysis
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  • 4
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    Energy transfer from high-shear, low-frequency internal waves to high-frequency waves near Kaena Ridge, Hawaii (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 1524–1547, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0117.1.
    Description: Evidence is presented for the transfer of energy from low-frequency inertial–diurnal internal waves to high-frequency waves in the band between 6 cpd and the buoyancy frequency. This transfer links the most energetic waves in the spectrum, those receiving energy directly from the winds, barotropic tides, and parametric subharmonic instability, with those most directly involved in the breaking process. Transfer estimates are based on month-long records of ocean velocity and temperature obtained continuously over 80–800 m from the research platform (R/P) Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) in the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment (HOME) Nearfield (2002) and Farfield (2001) experiments, in Hawaiian waters. Triple correlations between low-frequency vertical shears and high-frequency Reynolds stresses, uiw∂Ui/∂z, are used to estimate energy transfers. These are supported by bispectral analysis, which show significant energy transfers to pairs of waves with nearly identical frequency. Wavenumber bispectra indicate that the vertical scales of the high-frequency waves are unequal, with one wave of comparable scale to that of the low-frequency parent and the other of much longer scale. The scales of the high-frequency waves contrast with the classical pictures of induced diffusion and elastic scattering interactions and violates the scale-separation assumption of eikonal models of interaction. The possibility that the observed waves are Doppler shifted from intrinsic frequencies near f or N is explored. Peak transfer rates in the Nearfield, an energetic tidal conversion site, are on the order of 2 × 10−7 W kg−1 and are of similar magnitude to estimates of turbulent dissipation that were made near the ridge during HOME. Transfer rates in the Farfield are found to be about half the Nearfield values.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2013-03-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Energy transport ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ship observations ; Spectral analysis/models/distribution
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 5
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    Parametric subharmonic instability of the internal tide at 29°N (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 17–28, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0108.1.
    Description: Observational evidence is presented for transfer of energy from the internal tide to near-inertial motions near 29°N in the Pacific Ocean. The transfer is accomplished via parametric subharmonic instability (PSI), which involves interaction between a primary wave (the internal tide in this case) and two smaller-scale waves of nearly half the frequency. The internal tide at this location is a complex superposition of a low-mode waves propagating north from Hawaii and higher-mode waves generated at local seamounts, making application of PSI theory challenging. Nevertheless, a statistically significant phase locking is documented between the internal tide and upward- and downward-propagating near-inertial waves. The phase between those three waves is consistent with that expected from PSI theory. Calculated energy transfer rates from the tide to near-inertial motions are modest, consistent with local dissipation rate estimates. The conclusion is that while PSI does befall the tide near a critical latitude of 29°N, it does not do so catastrophically.
    Description: This work was sponsored by NSF OCE 04-25283.
    Description: 2013-07-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 6
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    The role of whitecapping in thickening the ocean surface boundary layer (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2006–2024, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0234.1.
    Description: The effects of wind-driven whitecapping on the evolution of the ocean surface boundary layer are examined using an idealized one-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes numerical model. Whitecapping is parameterized as a flux of turbulent kinetic energy through the sea surface and through an adjustment of the turbulent length scale. Simulations begin with a two-layer configuration and use a wind that ramps to a steady stress. This study finds that the boundary layer begins to thicken sooner in simulations with whitecapping than without because whitecapping introduces energy to the base of the boundary layer sooner than shear production does. Even in the presence of whitecapping, shear production becomes important for several hours, but then inertial oscillations cause shear production and whitecapping to alternate as the dominant energy sources for mixing. Details of these results are sensitive to initial and forcing conditions, particularly to the turbulent length scale imposed by breaking waves and the transfer velocity of energy from waves to turbulence. After 1–2 days of steady wind, the boundary layer in whitecapping simulations has thickened more than the boundary layer in simulations without whitecapping by about 10%–50%, depending on the forcing and initial conditions.
    Description: We thank Skidmore College for financial and infrastructure support, and Skidmore and the National Science Foundation for funding travel to meetings where early versions of this work were presented. We also thank the National Science Foundation, Oregon State University, Jonathan Nash, and Joe Jurisa for funding and hosting a workshop on River Plume Mixing in October, 2013, where ideas and context for this paper were developed.
    Description: 2016-02-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mixing ; Turbulence ; Wave breaking ; Wind stress ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixed layer
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 7
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    Coral reef drag coefficients—surface gravity wave enhancement (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1555-1566, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0231.1.
    Description: A primary challenge in modeling flow over shallow coral reefs is accurately characterizing the bottom drag. Previous studies over continental shelves and sandy beaches suggest surface gravity waves should enhance the drag on the circulation over coral reefs. The influence of surface gravity waves on drag over four platform reefs in the Red Sea is examined using observations from 6-month deployments of current and pressure sensors burst sampling at 1Hz for 4–5min. Depth-average current fluctuations U0 within each burst are dominated by wave orbital velocities uw that account for 80%–90%of the burst variance and have a magnitude of order 10 cm s21, similar to the lower-frequency depth-average current Uavg. Previous studies have shown that the cross-reef bottom stress balances the pressure gradient over these reefs. A bottom stress estimate that neglects the waves (rCdaUavgjUavgj, where r is water density and Cda is a drag coefficient) balances the observed pressure gradient when uw is smaller than Uavg but underestimates the pressure gradient when uw is larger than Uavg (by a factor of 3–5 when uw 5 2Uavg), indicating the neglected waves enhance the bottom stress. In contrast, a bottom stress estimate that includes the waves [rCda(Uavg 1 U0)jUavg 1 U0j)] balances the observed pressure gradient independent of the relative size of uw and Uavg, indicating that this estimate accounts for the wave enhancement of the bottom stress. A parameterization proposed by Wright and Thompson provides a reasonable estimate of the total bottom stress (including the waves) given the burst-averaged current and the wave orbital velocity.
    Description: The Red Sea field program was supported by Awards USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by KAUST. S. Lentz was supported for the analysis by NSF Award OCE-1558343.
    Description: 2019-01-13
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Currents ; Dynamics ; Gravity waves ; Turbulence
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  • 8
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    Observations of turbulence in the ocean surface boundary layer : energetics and transport (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1077–1096, doi:10.1175/2008JPO4044.1.
    Description: Observations of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dynamics in the ocean surface boundary layer are presented here and compared with results from previous observational, numerical, and analytic studies. As in previous studies, the dissipation rate of TKE is found to be higher in the wavy ocean surface boundary layer than it would be in a flow past a rigid boundary with similar stress and buoyancy forcing. Estimates of the terms in the turbulent kinetic energy equation indicate that, unlike in a flow past a rigid boundary, the dissipation rates cannot be balanced by local production terms, suggesting that the transport of TKE is important in the ocean surface boundary layer. A simple analytic model containing parameterizations of production, dissipation, and transport reproduces key features of the vertical profile of TKE, including enhancement near the surface. The effective turbulent diffusion coefficient for heat is larger than would be expected in a rigid-boundary boundary layer. This diffusion coefficient is predicted reasonably well by a model that contains the effects of shear production, buoyancy forcing, and transport of TKE (thought to be related to wave breaking). Neglect of buoyancy forcing or wave breaking in the parameterization results in poor predictions of turbulent diffusivity. Langmuir turbulence was detected concurrently with a fraction of the turbulence quantities reported here, but these times did not stand out as having significant differences from observations when Langmuir turbulence was not detected.
    Description: The Office of Naval Research funded this work as a part of CBLAST-Low.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Boundary layer ; Sea/ocean surface ; Air-sea interaction ; Energy transport
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 9
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    The upper-oceanic response to overflows : a mechanism for the Azores Current (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 880–895, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3750.1.
    Description: The oceanic response to overflows is explored using a two-layer isopycnal model. Overflows enter the open ocean as dense gravity currents that flow along and down the continental slope. While descending the slope, overflows typically double their volume transport by entraining upper oceanic water. The upper oceanic layer must balance this loss of mass, and the resulting convergent flow produces significant vortex stretching. Overflows thus represent an intense and localized mass and vorticity forcing for the upper ocean. In this study, simulations show that the upper ocean responds to the overflow-induced forcing by establishing topographic β plumes that are aligned more or less along isobaths and that have a transport that is typically a few times larger than that of the overflows. For the topographic β plume driven by the Mediterranean overflow, the occurrence of eddies near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, allows the topographic β plume to flow across isobaths. The modeled topographic β-plume circulation forms two transatlantic zonal jets that are analogous to the Azores Current and the Azores Countercurrent. In other cases (e.g., the Denmark Strait overflow), the same kind of circulation remains trapped along the western boundary and hence would not be readily detected.
    Description: SK’s support during the time of his Ph.D. research in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program was provided by the National Science Foundation through Grant OCE04-24741. JP and JY have also received support from the Climate Process Team on Gravity Current Entrainment, NSF Grant OCE-0611530.
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Mediterranean region ; Ocean models ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Diapycnal mixing
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 10
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    Direct breaking of the internal tide near topography : Kaena Ridge, Hawaii (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 380-399, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3728.1.
    Description: Barotropic to baroclinic conversion and attendant phenomena were recently examined at the Kaena Ridge as an aspect of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment. Two distinct mixing processes appear to be at work in the waters above the 1100-m-deep ridge crest. At middepths, above 400 m, mixing events resemble their open-ocean counterparts. There is no apparent modulation of mixing rates with the fortnightly cycle, and they are well modeled by standard open-ocean parameterizations. Nearer to the topography, there is quasi-deterministic breaking associated with each baroclinic crest passage. Large-amplitude, small-scale internal waves are triggered by tidal forcing, consistent with lee-wave formation at the ridge break. These waves have vertical wavelengths on the order of 400 m. During spring tides, the waves are nonlinear and exhibit convective instabilities on their leading edge. Dissipation rates exceed those predicted by the open-ocean parameterizations by up to a factor of 100, with the disparity increasing as the seafloor is approached. These observations are based on a set of repeated CTD and microconductivity profiles obtained from the research platform (R/P) Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP), which was trimoored over the southern edge of the ridge crest. Ocean velocity and shear were resolved to a 4-m vertical scale by a suspended Doppler sonar. Dissipation was estimated both by measuring overturn displacements and from microconductivity wavenumber spectra. The methods agreed in water deeper than 200 m, where sensor resolution limitations do not limit the turbulence estimates. At intense mixing sites new phenomena await discovery, and existing parameterizations cannot be expected to apply.
    Description: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation as a component of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Program. Added support for FLIP was provided by the Office of Naval Research.
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Topographic effects ; Internal waves ; Barotropic flows ; Baroclinic flows
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 11
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    Nonlinear disintegration of the internal tide (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 686-701, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3826.1.
    Description: The disintegration of a first-mode internal tide into shorter solitary-like waves is considered. Since observations frequently show both tides and waves with amplitudes beyond the restrictions of weakly nonlinear theory, the evolution is studied using a fully nonlinear, weakly nonhydrostatic two-layer theory that includes rotation. In the hydrostatic limit, the governing equations have periodic, nonlinear inertia–gravity solutions that are explored as models of the nonlinear internal tide. These long waves are shown to be robust to weak nonhydrostatic effects. Numerical solutions show that the disintegration of an initial sinusoidal linear internal tide is closely linked to the presence of these nonlinear waves. The initial tide steepens due to nonlinearity and sheds energy into short solitary waves. The disintegration is halted as the longwave part of the solution settles onto a state close to one of the nonlinear hydrostatic solutions, with the short solitary waves superimposed. The degree of disintegration is a function of initial amplitude of the tide and the properties of the underlying nonlinear hydrostatic solutions, which, depending on stratification and tidal frequency, exist only for a finite range of amplitudes (or energies). There is a lower threshold below which no short solitary waves are produced. However, for initial amplitudes above another threshold, given approximately by the energy of the limiting nonlinear hydrostatic inertia–gravity wave, most of the initial tidal energy goes into solitary waves. Recent observations in the South China Sea are briefly discussed.
    Description: KRH was supported by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Mellon Independent Study Award and ONR Grant N000140610798.
    Keywords: Tides ; Internal waves ; Solitary waves ; Inertia–gravity waves ; Rotation
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 12
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    Vertical structure of dissipation in the nearshore (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1764-1777, doi:10.1175/jpo3098.1.
    Description: The vertical structure of the dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy was observed in the nearshore region (3.2-m mean water depth) with a tripod of three acoustic Doppler current meters off a sandy ocean beach. Surface and bottom boundary layer dissipation scaling concepts overlap in this region. No depth-limited wave breaking occurred at the tripod, but wind-induced whitecapping wave breaking did occur. Dissipation is maximum near the surface and minimum at middepth, with a secondary maximum near the bed. The observed dissipation does not follow a surfzone scaling, nor does it follow a “log layer” surface or bottom boundary layer scaling. At the upper two current meters, dissipation follows a modified deep-water breaking-wave scaling. Vertical shear in the mean currents is negligible and shear production magnitude is much less than dissipation, implying that the vertical diffusion of turbulence is important. The increased near-bed secondary dissipation maximum results from a decrease in the turbulent length scale.
    Description: Funding was provided by NSF and ONR.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Kinetic energy ; Ocean
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  • 13
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    The unpredictable nature of internal tides on continental shelves (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 1981–2000, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-028.1.
    Description: Packets of nonlinear internal waves (NLIWs) in a small area of the Mid-Atlantic Bight were 10 times more energetic during a local neap tide than during the preceding spring tide. This counterintuitive result cannot be explained if the waves are generated near the shelf break by the local barotropic tide since changes in shelfbreak stratification explain only a small fraction of the variability in barotropic to baroclinic conversion. Instead, this study suggests that the occurrence of strong NLIWs was caused by the shoaling of distantly generated internal tides with amplitudes that are uncorrelated with the local spring-neap cycle. An extensive set of moored observations show that NLIWs are correlated with the internal tide but uncorrelated with barotropic tide. Using harmonic analysis of a 40-day record, this study associates steady-phase motions at the shelf break with waves generated by the local barotropic tide and variable-phase motions with the shoaling of distantly generated internal tides. The dual sources of internal tide energy (local or remote) mean that shelf internal tides and NLIWs will be predictable with a local model only if the locally generated internal tides are significantly stronger than shoaling internal tides. Since the depth-integrated internal tide energy in the open ocean can greatly exceed that on the shelf, it is likely that shoaling internal tides control the energetics on shelves that are directly exposed to the open ocean.
    Description: This research was supported by ONR Grants N00014-05-1-0271, N00014-08-1-0991, N00014-04- 1-0146, and N00014-11-1-0194.
    Description: 2013-05-01
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Tides
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  • 14
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    Turbulence and diapycnal mixing in Drake Passage (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 2143–2152, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-027.1.
    Description: Direct measurements of turbulence levels in the Drake Passage region of the Southern Ocean show a marked enhancement over the Phoenix Ridge. At this site, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is constricted in its flow between the southern tip of South America and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Observed turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates are enhanced in the regions corresponding to the ACC frontal zones where strong flow reaches the bottom. In these areas, turbulent dissipation levels reach 10−8 W kg−1 at abyssal and middepths. The mixing enhancement in the frontal regions is sufficient to elevate the diapycnal turbulent diffusivity acting in the deep water above the axis of the ridge to 1 × 10−4 m2 s−1. This level is an order of magnitude larger than the mixing levels observed upstream in the ACC above smoother bathymetry. Outside of the frontal regions, dissipation rates are O(10−10) W kg−1, comparable to the background levels of turbulence found throughout most mid- and low-latitude regions of the global ocean.
    Description: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and by the Natural Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom.
    Description: 2013-06-01
    Keywords: Southern Ocean ; Turbulence ; Diapycnal mixing
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  • 15
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    Estimates of cabbeling in the global ocean (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 698–705, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0119.1.
    Description: Owing to the larger thermal expansion coefficient at higher temperatures, more buoyancy is put into the ocean by heating than is removed by cooling at low temperatures. The authors show that, even with globally balanced thermal and haline surface forcing at the ocean surface, there is a negative density flux and hence a positive buoyancy flux. As shown by McDougall and Garrett, this must be compensated by interior densification on mixing due to the nonlinearity of the equation of state (cabbeling). Three issues that arise from this are addressed: the estimation of the annual input of density forcing, the effects of the seasonal cycle, and the total cabbeling potential of the ocean upon complete mixing. The annual expansion through surface density forcing in a steady-state ocean driven by balanced evaporation–precipitation–runoff (E–P–R) and net radiative budget at the surface Qnet is estimated as 74 000 m3 s−1 (0.07 Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1), which would be equivalent to a sea level rise of 6.3 mm yr−1. This is equivalent to approximately 3 times the estimated rate of sea level rise or 450% of the average Mississippi River discharge. When seasonal variations are included, this density forcing increases by 35% relative to the time-mean case to 101 000 m3 s−1 (0.1 Sv). Likely bounds are established on these numbers by using different Qnet and E–P–R datasets and the estimates are found to be robust to a factor of ~2. These values compare well with the cabbeling-induced contraction inferred from independent thermal dissipation rate estimates. The potential sea level decrease upon complete vertical mixing of the ocean is estimated as 230 mm. When horizontal mixing is included, the sea level drop is estimated as 300 mm.
    Description: The authors would like to acknowledge support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Grant NNX12AF59G and the National Science Foundation, Grant OCE-0647949.
    Description: 2013-10-01
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Conservation equations ; Diapycnal mixing ; Heating ; Mixing ; Heat budgets/fluxes
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  • 16
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    Mixing variability in the Southern Ocean (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 966–987, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0110.1.
    Description: A key remaining challenge in oceanography is the understanding and parameterization of small-scale mixing. Evidence suggests that topographic features play a significant role in enhancing mixing in the Southern Ocean. This study uses 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel EM-APEX profiling floats to investigate turbulent mixing north of the Kerguelen Plateau, a major topographic feature in the Southern Ocean. A shear–strain finescale parameterization is applied to estimate diapycnal diffusivity in the upper 1600 m of the ocean. The indirect estimates of mixing match direct microstructure profiler observations made simultaneously. It is found that mixing intensities have strong spatial and temporal variability, ranging from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1. This study identifies topographic roughness, current speed, and wind speed as the main factors controlling mixing intensity. Additionally, the authors find strong regional variability in mixing dynamics and enhanced mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current frontal region. This enhanced mixing is attributed to dissipating internal waves generated by the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the topography of the Kerguelen Plateau. Extending the mixing observations from the Kerguelen region to the entire Southern Ocean, this study infers a large water mass transformation rate of 17 Sverdrups (Sv; 1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) across the boundary of Antarctic Intermediate Water and Upper Circumpolar Deep Water in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This work suggests that the contribution of mixing to the Southern Ocean overturning circulation budget is particularly significant in fronts.
    Description: AM was supported by the joint CSIRO–University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. BMS was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program, jointly funded by the Department of the Environment and CSIRO. KLPs salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2015-10-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Fronts ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixing
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    Turbulence from breaking surface waves at a river mouth (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 435-453, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0122.1.
    Description: Observations of surface waves, currents, and turbulence at the Columbia River mouth are used to investigate the source and vertical structure of turbulence in the surface boundary layer. Turbulent velocity data collected on board freely drifting Surface Wave Instrument Float with Tracking (SWIFT) buoys are corrected for platform motions to estimate turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and TKE dissipation rates. Both of these quantities are correlated with wave steepness, which has previously been shown to determine wave breaking within the same dataset. Estimates of the turbulent length scale increase linearly with distance from the free surface, and roughness lengths estimated from velocity statistics scale with significant wave height. The vertical decay of turbulence is consistent with a balance between vertical diffusion and dissipation. Below a critical depth, a power-law scaling commonly applied in the literature works well to fit the data. Above this depth, an exponential scaling fits the data well. These results, which are in a surface-following reference frame, are reconciled with results from the literature in a fixed reference frame. A mapping between free-surface and mean-surface reference coordinates suggests 30% of the TKE is dissipated above the mean sea surface.
    Description: Funding for this project was provided by the Office of Naval Research as part of the RIVET-II DRI, and for the DARLA group.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Estuaries ; Gravity waves ; Turbulence ; Wave breaking ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Comment on “Abyssal upwelling and downwelling driven by near-boundary mixing” (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 739-748, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0089.1.
    Description: McDougall and Ferrari have estimated the global deep upward diapycnal flow in the boundary layer overlying continental slopes that must balance both downward diapycnal flow in the deep interior and the formation of bottom water around Antarctica. The decrease of perimeter of isopycnal surfaces with depth and the observed decay with height above bottom of turbulent dissipation in the deep ocean play a key role in their estimate. They argue that because the perimeter of seamounts increases with depth, the net effect of mixing around seamounts is to produce net downward diapycnal flow. While this is true along much of a seamount, it is shown here that diapycnal flow of the densest water around the seamount is upward, with buoyancy being transferred from water just above. The same is true for midocean ridges, whose perimeter is constant with depth. It is argued that mixing around seamounts and especially midocean ridges contributes positively to the global deep overturning circulation, reducing the amount of turbulence demanded over the continental slopes to balance the buoyancy budget for the bottom and deep water.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OCE- 1232962.
    Description: 2018-09-29
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Boundary currents ; Buoyancy ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mass fluxes/transport ; Ocean circulation
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    Seasonal kinetic energy variability of near-inertial motions (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 39 (2009): 1035-1049, doi:10.1175/2008JPO3920.1.
    Description: Seasonal variability of near-inertial horizontal kinetic energy is examined using observations from a series of McLane Moored Profiler moorings located at 39°N, 69°W in the western North Atlantic Ocean in combination with a one-dimensional, depth-integrated kinetic energy model. The time-mean kinetic energy and shear vertical wavenumber spectra of the high-frequency motions at the mooring site are in reasonable agreement with the Garrett–Munk internal wave description. Time series of depth-dependent and depth-integrated near-inertial kinetic energy are calculated from available mooring data after filtering to isolate near-inertial-frequency motions. These data document a pronounced seasonal cycle featuring a wintertime maximum in the depth-integrated near-inertial kinetic energy deriving chiefly from the variability in the upper 500 m of the water column. The seasonal signal in the near-inertial kinetic energy is most prominent for motions with vertical wavelengths greater than 100 m but observable wintertime enhancement is seen down to wavelengths of the order of 10 m. Rotary vertical wavenumber spectra exhibit a dominance of clockwise-with-depth energy, indicative of downward energy propagation and implying a surface energy source. A simple depth-integrated near-inertial kinetic energy model consisting of a wind forcing term and a dissipation term captures the order of magnitude of the observed near-inertial kinetic energy as well as its seasonal cycle.
    Description: Funding to initiate the McLane Moored Profiler observations at Line W were provided by grants from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation and the Comer Charitable Fund to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean and Climate Change Institute. Ongoing moored observations at Line W are supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant OCE-0241354).
    Keywords: Kinetic energy ; Internal waves ; Intraseasonal variability ; North Atlantic Ocean ; In situ observations
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    The importance of tidal and lateral asymmetries in stratification to residual circulation in partially mixed estuaries (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 37 (2007): 1496-1511, doi:10.1175/jpo3071.1.
    Description: Measurements collected in the York River estuary, Virginia, demonstrate the important impact that tidal and lateral asymmetries in turbulent mixing have on the tidally averaged residual circulation. A reduction in turbulent mixing during the ebb phase of the tide caused by tidal straining of the axial density gradient results in increased vertical velocity shear throughout the water column during the ebb tide. In the absence of significant lateral differences in turbulent mixing, the enhanced ebb-directed transport caused by tidal straining is balanced by a reduction in the net seaward-directed barotropic pressure gradient, resulting in laterally uniform two-layer residual flow. However, the channel–shoal morphology of many drowned river valley estuaries often leads to lateral gradients in turbulent mixing. Tidal straining may then lead to tidal asymmetries in turbulent mixing near the deeper channel while the neighboring shoals remain relatively well mixed. As a result, the largest lateral asymmetries in turbulent mixing occur at the end of the ebb tide when the channel is significantly more stratified than the shoals. The reduced friction at the end of ebb delays the onset of the flood tide, increasing the duration of ebb in the channel. Conversely, over the shoal regions where stratification is more inhibited by tidal mixing, there is greater friction and the transition from ebb to flood occurs more rapidly. The resulting residual circulation is seaward over the channel and landward over the shoal. The shoal–channel segregation of this barotropically induced estuarine residual flow is opposite to that typically associated with baroclinic estuarine circulation over channel–shoal bathymetry.
    Description: Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences Grant OCE- 9984941.
    Keywords: Tides ; Ocean circulation ; Estuaries ; Turbulence
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    The turbulent oscillator : a mechanism of low-frequency variability of the wind-driven ocean gyres (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography. 37 (2007): 2363-2386, doi:10.1175/jpo3118.1.
    Description: Intrinsic low-frequency variability is studied in the idealized, quasigeostrophic, midlatitude, wind-driven ocean gyres operating at large Reynolds number. A robust decadal variability mode driven by the transient mesoscale eddies is found and analyzed. The variability is a turbulent phenomenon, which is driven by the competition between the eddy rectification process and the potential vorticity anomalies induced by changes of the intergyre transport
    Description: Funding for Pavel Berloff was provided by NSF Grants OCE-0091836 and OCE- 0344094, by the U.K. Royal Society Fellowship, and by the Newton Trust Award, A. M. Hogg was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (DP0449851) during this work, and William K. Dewar was supported by NSF Grants OCE-0424227 and OCE-0550139.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Gyres ; Transport ; Potential vorticity ; Mesoscale processes
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    The influence of stratification and nonlocal turbulent production on estuarine turbulence : an assessment of turbulence closure with field observations (2011)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 166-185, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4470.1.
    Description: Field observations of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), dissipation rate ε, and turbulent length scale demonstrate the impact of both density stratification and nonlocal turbulent production on turbulent momentum flux. The data were collected in a highly stratified salt wedge estuary using the Mobile Array for Sensing Turbulence (MAST). Estimates of the dominant length scale of turbulent motions obtained from the vertical velocity spectra provide field confirmation of the theoretical limitation imposed by either the distance to the boundary or the Ozmidov scale, whichever is smaller. Under boundary-limited conditions, anisotropy generally increases with increasing shear and decreased distance to the boundary. Under Ozmidov-limited conditions, anisotropy increases rapidly when the gradient Richardson number exceeds 0.25. Both boundary-limited and Ozmidov-limited conditions demonstrate significant deviations from a local production–dissipation balance that are largely consistent with simple scaling relationships for the vertical divergence in TKE flux. Both the impact of stratification and deviation from equilibrium turbulence observed in the data are largely consistent with commonly used turbulence closure models that employ “nonequilibrium” stability functions. The data compare most favorably with the nonequilibrium version of the L. H. Kantha and C. A. Clayson stability functions. Not only is this approach more consistent with the observed critical gradient Richardson number of 0.25, but it also accounts for the large deviations from equilibrium turbulence in a manner consistent with the observations.
    Description: The funding for this research was obtained from ONR Grant N00014-06-1-0292 and NSF Grants and OCE-08-25226 and OCE-08-24871.
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Estuaries ; Kinetic energy
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    The role of advection, straining, and mixing on the tidal variability of estuarine stratification (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 42 (2012): 855–868, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-10-05010.1.
    Description: Data from the Hudson River estuary demonstrate that the tidal variations in vertical salinity stratification are not consistent with the patterns associated with along-channel tidal straining. These observations result from three additional processes not accounted for in the traditional tidal straining model: 1) along-channel and 2) lateral advection of horizontal gradients in the vertical salinity gradient and 3) tidal asymmetries in the strength of vertical mixing. As a result, cross-sectionally averaged values of the vertical salinity gradient are shown to increase during the flood tide and decrease during the ebb. Only over a limited portion of the cross section does the observed stratification increase during the ebb and decrease during the flood. These observations highlight the three-dimensional nature of estuarine flows and demonstrate that lateral circulation provides an alternate mechanism that allows for the exchange of materials between surface and bottom waters, even when direct turbulent mixing through the pycnocline is prohibited by strong stratification.
    Description: The funding for this research was obtained from NSF Grant OCE-08-25226.
    Description: 2012-11-01
    Keywords: Mixing ; Ocean circulation ; Shear structure/flows ; Transport ; Turbulence
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    Internal waves and turbulence in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 259–282, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-11-0194.1.
    Description: This study reports on observations of turbulent dissipation and internal wave-scale flow properties in a standing meander of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) north of the Kerguelen Plateau. The authors characterize the intensity and spatial distribution of the observed turbulent dissipation and the derived turbulent mixing, and consider underpinning mechanisms in the context of the internal wave field and the processes governing the waves’ generation and evolution. The turbulent dissipation rate and the derived diapycnal diffusivity are highly variable with systematic depth dependence. The dissipation rate is generally enhanced in the upper 1000–1500 m of the water column, and both the dissipation rate and diapycnal diffusivity are enhanced in some places near the seafloor, commonly in regions of rough topography and in the vicinity of strong bottom flows associated with the ACC jets. Turbulent dissipation is high in regions where internal wave energy is high, consistent with the idea that interior dissipation is related to a breaking internal wave field. Elevated turbulence occurs in association with downward-propagating near-inertial waves within 1–2 km of the surface, as well as with upward-propagating, relatively high-frequency waves within 1–2 km of the seafloor. While an interpretation of these near-bottom waves as lee waves generated by ACC jets flowing over small-scale topographic roughness is supported by the qualitative match between the spatial patterns in predicted lee wave radiation and observed near-bottom dissipation, the observed dissipation is found to be only a small percentage of the energy flux predicted by theory. The mismatch suggests an alternative fate to local dissipation for a significant fraction of the radiated energy.
    Description: SW acknowledges the support of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London. ACNG acknowledges the support of a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship (Grant NE/C517633/1). KLP acknowledges support from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2013-08-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Turbulence
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    Subharmonic energy transfer from the semidiurnal internal tide to near-diurnal motions over Kaena Ridge, Hawaii (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 766–789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0141.1.
    Description: Nonlinear energy transfers from the semidiurnal internal tide to high-mode, near-diurnal motions are documented near Kaena Ridge, Hawaii, an energetic generation site for the baroclinic tide. Data were collected aboard the Research Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP) over a 35-day period during the fall of 2002, as part of the Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment (HOME) Nearfield program. Energy transfer terms for a PSI resonant interaction at midlatitude are identified and compared to those for near-inertial PSI close to the M2 critical latitude. Bispectral techniques are used to demonstrate significant energy transfers in the Nearfield, between the low-mode M2 internal tide and subharmonic waves with frequencies near M2/2 and vertical wavelengths of O(120 m). A novel prefilter is used to test the PSI wavenumber resonance condition, which requires the subharmonic waves to propagate in opposite vertical directions. Depth–time maps of the interactions, formed by directly estimating the energy transfer terms, show that energy is transferred predominantly from the tide to subharmonic waves, but numerous reverse energy transfers are also found. A net forward energy transfer rate of 2 × 10−9 W kg−1 is found below 400 m. The suggestion is that the HOME observations of energy transfer from the tide to subharmonic waves represent a first step in the open-ocean energy cascade. Observed PSI transfer rates could account for a small but significant fraction of the turbulent dissipation of the tide within 60 km of Kaena Ridge. Further extrapolation suggests that integrated PSI energy transfers equatorward of the M2 critical latitude may be comparable to PSI energy transfers previously observed near 28.8°N.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2013-10-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Energy transport ; Internal waves ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Mechanisms of tidal oscillatory salt transport in a partially stratified estuary (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2773–2789, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0031.1.
    Description: Tidal oscillatory salt transport, induced by the correlation between tidal variations in salinity and velocity, is an important term for the subtidal salt balance under the commonly used Eulerian method of salt transport decomposition. In this paper, its mechanisms in a partially stratified estuary are investigated with a numerical model of the Hudson estuary. During neap tides, when the estuary is strongly stratified, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to the hydraulic response of the halocline to the longitudinal variation of topography. This mechanism does not involve vertical mixing, so it should not be regarded as oscillatory shear dispersion, but instead it should be regarded as advective transport of salt, which results from the vertical distortion of exchange flow obtained in the Eulerian decomposition by vertical fluctuations of the halocline. During spring tides, the estuary is weakly stratified, and vertical mixing plays a significant role in the tidal variation of salinity. In the spring tide regime, the tidal oscillatory salt transport is mainly due to oscillatory shear dispersion. In addition, the transient lateral circulation near large channel curvature causes the transverse tilt of the halocline. This mechanism has little effect on the cross-sectionally integrated tidal oscillatory salt transport, but it results in an apparent left–right cross-channel asymmetry of tidal oscillatory salt transport. With the isohaline framework, tidal oscillatory salt transport can be regarded as a part of the net estuarine salt transport, and the Lagrangian advective mechanism and dispersive mechanism can be distinguished.
    Description: Tao Wang was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (Grant SKLEC-KF201509) and Chinese Scholarship Council. Geyer was supported by by NSF Grant OCE 0926427. Wensheng Jiang was supported by NSFC-Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers (Grant U1406401).
    Description: 2016-05-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Estuaries ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Dispersion ; Shear structure/flows ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Models and modeling ; Regional models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 27
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    Wind-wave effects on estuarine turbulence : a comparison of observations and second-moment closure predictions (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 905-923, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0133.1.
    Description: Observations of turbulent kinetic energy, dissipation, and turbulent stress were collected in the middle reaches of Chesapeake Bay and were used to assess second-moment closure predictions of turbulence generated beneath breaking waves. Dissipation scaling indicates that the turbulent flow structure observed during a 10-day wind event was dominated by a three-layer response that consisted of 1) a wave transport layer, 2) a surface log layer, and 3) a tidal, bottom boundary layer limited by stable stratification. Below the wave transport layer, turbulent mixing was limited by stable stratification. Within the wave transport layer, where dissipation was balanced by a divergence in the vertical turbulent kinetic energy flux, the eddy viscosity was significantly underestimated by second-moment turbulence closure models, suggesting that breaking waves homogenized the mixed surface layer to a greater extent than the simple model of TKE diffusing away from a source at the surface. While the turbulent transport of TKE occurred largely downgradient, the intermittent downward sweeps of momentum generated by breaking waves occurred largely independent of the mean shear. The underprediction of stress in the wave transport layer by second-moment closures was likely due to the inability of the eddy viscosity model to capture the nonlocal turbulent transport of the momentum flux beneath breaking waves. Finally, the authors hypothesize that large-scale coherent turbulent eddies played a significant role in transporting momentum generated near the surface to depth.
    Description: This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1061609 and OCE-1339032.
    Description: 2018-10-19
    Keywords: Mixing ; Turbulence ; Waves, oceanic ; Boundary layer
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    Observed variations in turbulent mixing efficiency in the deep ocean (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1815-1830, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0275.1.
    Description: Recent progress in direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of stratified turbulent flows has led to increasing attention to the validity of the constancy of the dissipation flux coefficient Γ in the Osborn’s eddy diffusivity model. Motivated by lack of observational estimates of Γ, particularly under weakly stratified deep-ocean conditions, this study estimates Γ using deep microstructure profiles collected in various regions of the North Pacific and Southern Oceans. It is shown that Γ is not constant but varies significantly with the Ozmidov/Thorpe scale ratio ROT in a fashion similar to that obtained by previous DNS studies. Efficient mixing events with Γ ~ O(1) and ROT ~ O(0.1) tend to be frequently observed in the deep ocean (i.e., weak stratification), while moderate mixing events with Γ ~ O(0.1) and ROT ~ O(1) tend to be observed in the upper ocean (i.e., strong stratification). The observed negative relationship between Γ and ROT is consistent with a simple scaling that can be derived from classical turbulence theories. In contrast, the observed results exhibit no definite relationships between Γ and the buoyancy Reynolds number Reb, although Reb has long been thought to be another key parameter that controls Γ.
    Description: This study was supported by MEXT KAKENHI Grant JP15H05824 and JSPS KAKENHI Grant JP15H02131.
    Description: 2019-02-15
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Mixing ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Turbulence ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Dynamics of three-dimensional turbulent wall plumes and implications for estimates of submarine glacier melting (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018):1941-1950, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0194.1.
    Description: Subglacial discharges have been observed to generate buoyant plumes along the ice face of Greenland tidewater glaciers. These plumes have been traditionally modeled using classical plume theory, and their characteristic parameters (e.g., velocity) are employed in the widely used three-equation melt parameterization. However, the applicability of plume theory for three-dimensional turbulent wall plumes is questionable because of the complex near-wall plume dynamics. In this study, corrections to the classical plume theory are introduced to account for the presence of a wall. In particular, the drag and entrainment coefficients are quantified for a three-dimensional turbulent wall plume using data from direct numerical simulations. The drag coefficient is found to be an order of magnitude larger than that for a boundary layer flow over a flat plate at a similar Reynolds number. This result suggests a significant increase in the melting estimates by the current parameterization. However, the volume flux in a wall plume is found to be one-half that of a conical plume that has 2 times the buoyancy flux. This finding suggests that the total entrainment (per unit area) of ambient water is the same and that the plume scalar characteristics (i.e., temperature and salinity) can be predicted reasonably well using classical plume theory.
    Description: This work was supported by the Linné FLOW Centre at KTH and the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence Programme Grant 307331 (author Ezhova) and by VR Swedish Research Council GrantVR2014-5001 (author Brandt). Support to author Cenedese was given by NSF Project OCE-1434041.
    Description: 2019-02-27
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Entrainment ; Turbulence
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    The modification of bottom boundary layer turbulence and mixing by internal waves shoaling on a barrier reef (2012)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 2223–2241, doi:10.1175/2011JPO4344.1.
    Description: Results are presented from an observational study of stratified, turbulent flow in the bottom boundary layer on the outer southeast Florida shelf. Measurements of momentum and heat fluxes were made using an array of acoustic Doppler velocimeters and fast-response temperature sensors in the bottom 3 m over a rough reef slope. Direct estimates of flux Richardson number Rf confirm previous laboratory, numerical, and observational work, which find mixing efficiency not to be a constant but rather to vary with Frt, Reb, and Rig. These results depart from previous observations in that the highest levels of mixing efficiency occur for Frt 〈 1, suggesting that efficient mixing can also happen in regions of buoyancy-controlled turbulence. Generally, the authors find that turbulence in the reef bottom boundary layer is highly variable in time and modified by near-bed flow, shear, and stratification driven by shoaling internal waves.
    Description: Funding was provided by grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Undersea Research Program, National Science Foundation Grants OCE-0622967 and OCE- 0824972 to SGM, and the Singapore Stanford Program. Kristen Davis was supported by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship and an ARCS Foundation Fellowship.
    Keywords: Boundary layer ; Turbulence ; Bottom currents ; Mixing ; Internal waves
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    The impact of finite-amplitude bottom topography on internal wave generation in the Southern Ocean (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 2938–2950, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0201.1.
    Description: Direct observations in the Southern Ocean report enhanced internal wave activity and turbulence in a kilometer-thick layer above rough bottom topography collocated with the deep-reaching fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Linear theory, corrected for finite-amplitude topography based on idealized, two-dimensional numerical simulations, has been recently used to estimate the global distribution of internal wave generation by oceanic currents and eddies. The global estimate shows that the topographic wave generation is a significant sink of energy for geostrophic flows and a source of energy for turbulent mixing in the deep ocean. However, comparison with recent observations from the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean shows that the linear theory predictions and idealized two-dimensional simulations grossly overestimate the observed levels of turbulent energy dissipation. This study presents two- and three-dimensional, realistic topography simulations of internal lee-wave generation from a steady flow interacting with topography with parameters typical of Drake Passage. The results demonstrate that internal wave generation at three-dimensional, finite bottom topography is reduced compared to the two-dimensional case. The reduction is primarily associated with finite-amplitude bottom topography effects that suppress vertical motions and thus reduce the amplitude of the internal waves radiated from topography. The implication of these results for the global lee-wave generation is discussed.
    Description: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award CMG-1024198.
    Description: 2015-05-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Mixing ; Mountain waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Near-inertial internal wave field in the Canada Basin from ice-tethered profilers (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 413–426, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0117.1.
    Description: Salinity and temperature profiles from drifting ice-tethered profilers in the Beaufort gyre region of the Canada Basin are used to characterize and quantify the regional near-inertial internal wave field over one year. Vertical displacements of potential density surfaces from the surface to 750-m depth are tracked from fall 2006 to fall 2007. Because of the time resolution and irregular sampling of the ice-tethered profilers, near-inertial frequency signals are marginally resolved. Complex demodulation is used to determine variations with a time scale of several days in the amplitude and phase of waves at a specified near-inertial frequency. Characteristics and variability of the wave field over the course of the year are investigated quantitatively and related to changes in surface wind forcing and sea ice cover.
    Description: The ITP program and J. Toole’s contributions were supported by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Arctic Observing Network. We acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-11-1-0454) for this study. Support for H. Dosser was also provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
    Description: 2014-08-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Arctic ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Internal waves ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic
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    Spontaneous generation of near-inertial waves by the Kuroshio Front (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2381–2406, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0086.1.
    Description: While near-inertial waves are known to be generated by atmospheric storms, recent observations in the Kuroshio Front find intense near-inertial internal-wave shear along sloping isopycnals, even during calm weather. Recent literature suggests that spontaneous generation of near-inertial waves by frontal instabilities could represent a major sink for the subinertial quasigeostrophic circulation. An unforced three-dimensional 1-km-resolution model, initialized with the observed cross-Kuroshio structure, is used to explore this mechanism. After several weeks, the model exhibits growth of 10–100-km-scale frontal meanders, accompanied by O(10) mW m−2 spontaneous generation of near-inertial waves associated with readjustment of submesoscale fronts forced out of balance by mesoscale confluent flows. These waves have properties resembling those in the observations. However, they are reabsorbed into the model Kuroshio Front with no more than 15% dissipating or radiating away. Thus, spontaneous generation of near-inertial waves represents a redistribution of quasigeostrophic energy rather than a significant sink.
    Description: “The Study of Kuroshio Ecosystem Dynamics for Sustainable Fisheries (SKED)” supported by MEXT, MIT-Hayashi Seed Fund, ONR (Awards N000140910196 and N000141210101), NSF (Award OCE 0928617, 0928138) for support.
    Description: 2016-03-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Fronts ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Jets
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Biases in Thorpe-scale estimates of turbulence dissipation. Part I : Assessments from large-scale overturns in oceanographic data (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2497–2521, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0128.1.
    Description: Oceanic density overturns are commonly used to parameterize the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy. This method assumes a linear scaling between the Thorpe length scale LT and the Ozmidov length scale LO. Historic evidence supporting LT ~ LO has been shown for relatively weak shear-driven turbulence of the thermocline; however, little support for the method exists in regions of turbulence driven by the convective collapse of topographically influenced overturns that are large by open-ocean standards. This study presents a direct comparison of LT and LO, using vertical profiles of temperature and microstructure shear collected in the Luzon Strait—a site characterized by topographically influenced overturns up to O(100) m in scale. The comparison is also done for open-ocean sites in the Brazil basin and North Atlantic where overturns are generally smaller and due to different processes. A key result is that LT/LO increases with overturn size in a fashion similar to that observed in numerical studies of Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instabilities for all sites but is most clear in data from the Luzon Strait. Resultant bias in parameterized dissipation is mitigated by ensemble averaging; however, a positive bias appears when instantaneous observations are depth and time integrated. For a series of profiles taken during a spring tidal period in the Luzon Strait, the integrated value is nearly an order of magnitude larger than that based on the microstructure observations. Physical arguments supporting LT ~ LO are revisited, and conceptual regimes explaining the relationship between LT/LO and a nondimensional overturn size are proposed. In a companion paper, Scotti obtains similar conclusions from energetics arguments and simulations.
    Description: B.D.M. and S.K.V. gratefully acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research under Grants N00014-12-1-0279, N00014-12-1-0282, and N00014-12-1-0938 (Program Manager: Dr. Terri Paluszkiewicz). S.K.V. also acknowledges support of the National Science Foundation under Grant OCE-1151838. L.S.L. acknowledges support for BBTRE by the National Science Foundation by Contract OCE94-15589 and NATRE and IWISE by the Office of Naval Research by Contracts N00014-92-1323 and N00014-10-10315. J.N.M. was supported through Grant 1256620 from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research (IWISE Project).
    Description: 2016-04-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Mixing ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic ; Models and modeling ; Parameterization
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Characterization and modulation of Langmuir circulation in Chesapeake Bay (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 2621–2639, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0239.1.
    Description: Measurements made as part of a large-scale experiment to examine wind-driven circulation and mixing in Chesapeake Bay demonstrate that circulations consistent with Langmuir circulation play an important role in surface boundary layer dynamics. Under conditions when the turbulent Langmuir number Lat is low (〈0.5), the surface mixed layer is characterized by 1) elevated vertical turbulent kinetic energy; 2) decreased anisotropy; 3) negative vertical velocity skewness indicative of strong/narrow downwelling and weak/broad upwelling; and 4) strong negative correlations between low-frequency vertical velocity and the velocity in the direction of wave propagation. These characteristics appear to be primarily the result of the vortex force associated with the surface wave field, but convection driven by a destabilizing heat flux is observed and appears to contribute significantly to the observed negative vertical velocity skewness. Conditions that favor convection usually also have strong Langmuir forcing, and these two processes probably both contribute to the surface mixed layer turbulence. Conditions in which traditional stress-driven turbulence is important are limited in this dataset. Unlike other shallow coastal systems where full water column Langmuir circulation has been observed, the salinity stratification in Chesapeake Bay is nearly always strong enough to prevent full-depth circulation from developing.
    Description: The funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1339032 and OCE-1338518.
    Description: 2016-04-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Convection ; Instability ; Mixing ; Turbulence ; Wave breaking ; Wind stress
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Impact of a localized source of subglacial discharge on the heat flux and submarine melting of a tidewater glacier : a laboratory study (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 3155-3163, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0123.1.
    Description: Idealized laboratory experiments have been conducted in a two-layer stratified fluid to investigate the leading-order dynamics that control submarine melting and meltwater export near a vertical ice–ocean interface as a function of subglacial discharge. In summer, the discharge of surface runoff at the base of a glacier (subglacial discharge) generates strong buoyant plumes that rise along the glacier front entraining ambient water along the way. The entrainment enhances the heat transport toward the glacier front and hence the submarine melt rate increases with the subglacial discharge rate. In the laboratory, the effect of subglacial discharge is simulated by introducing freshwater at freezing temperature from a point source at the base of an ice block representing the glacier. The circulation pattern observed both with and without subglacial discharge resembles those observed in previous observational and numerical studies. Buoyant plumes rise vertically until they find either their neutrally buoyant level or the free surface. Hence, the meltwater can deposit within the interior of the water column and not entirely at the free surface, as confirmed by field observations. The heat budget in the tank, calculated following a new framework, gives estimates of submarine melt rate that increase with the subglacial discharge and are in agreement with the directly measured submarine melting. This laboratory study provides the first direct measurements of submarine melt rates for different subglacial discharges, and the results are consistent with the predictions of previous theoretical and numerical studies.
    Description: Support to C. C. was given by the NSF project OCE- 1130008 and OCE-1434041. M. G. received support from the ‘‘Gori’’ Fellowship.
    Description: 2017-04-07
    Keywords: Glaciers ; Buoyancy ; Density currents ; Turbulence ; Laboratory/physical models
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    Generation of internal solitary waves by lateral circulation in a stratified estuary (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1789-1797, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0240.1.
    Description: Internal solitary waves are commonly observed in the coastal ocean where they are known to contribute to mass transport and turbulent mixing. While these waves are often generated by cross-isobath barotropic tidal currents, novel observations are presented suggesting that internal solitary waves result from along-isobath tidal flows over channel-shoal bathymetry. Mooring and ship-based velocity, temperature, and salinity data were collected over a cross-channel section in a stratified estuary. The data show that Ekman forcing on along-channel tidal currents drives lateral circulation, which interacts with the stratified water over the deep channel to generate a supercritical mode-2 internal lee wave. This lee wave propagates onto the shallow shoal and evolves into a group of internal solitary waves of elevation due to nonlinear steepening. These observations highlight the potential importance of three-dimensionality on the conversion of tidal flow to internal waves in the rotating ocean.
    Description: National Science Foundation (OCE-1061609)
    Description: 2018-01-03
    Keywords: Estuaries ; Internal waves ; Solitary waves
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    Internal tidal modal ray refraction and energy ducting in baroclinic Gulf Stream currents (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1969-1993, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-18-0031.1.
    Description: Upstream mean semidiurnal internal tidal energy flux has been found in the Gulf Stream in hydrodynamical model simulations of the Atlantic Ocean. A major source of the energy in the simulations is the south edge of Georges Bank, where strong and resonant Gulf of Maine tidal currents are found. An explanation of the flux pattern within the Gulf Stream is that internal wave modal rays can be strongly redirected by baroclinic currents and even trapped (ducted) by current jets that feature strong velocities above the thermocline that are directed counter to the modal wavenumber vector (i.e., when the waves travel upstream). This ducting behavior is analyzed and explained here with ray-based wave propagation studies for internal wave modes with anisotropic wavenumbers, as occur in mesoscale background flow fields. Two primary analysis tools are introduced and then used to analyze the strong refraction and ducting: the generalized Jones equation governing modal properties and ray equations that are suitable for studying waves with anisotropic wavenumbers.
    Description: The Woods Hole research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1060430 and by the Office of Naval Research Grants N00014-11-1-0701 and N00014-17-1-2624. The USM research was supported by ONR Grant N00014-15-1-2288 and National Science Foundation Grant OCE-1537449.
    Description: 2019-02-28
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Wave properties ; Tides ; Differential equations ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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    Estuarine exchange flow is related to mixing through the salinity variance budget (2018)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 48 (2018): 1375-1384, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-17-0266.1.
    Description: The relationship between net mixing and the estuarine exchange flow may be quantified using a salinity variance budget. Here “mixing” is defined as the rate of destruction of volume-integrated salinity variance, and the exchange flow is quantified using the total exchange flow. These concepts are explored using an idealized 3D model estuary. It is shown that in steady state (e.g., averaging over the spring–neap cycle) the volume-integrated mixing is approximately given by Mixing ≅ SinSoutQr, where Sin and Sout are the representative salinities of in- and outflowing layers at the mouth and Qr is the river volume flux. This relationship provides an extension of the familiar Knudsen relation, in which the exchange flow is diagnosed based on knowledge of these same three quantities, quantitatively linking mixing to the exchange flow.
    Description: The work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grants OCE-1736242 to PM and OCE-1736539 to WRG and by the German Research Foundation through Grants TRR 181 and GRK 2000 to HB.
    Keywords: Coastal flows ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ocean dynamics ; Streamflow ; Diagnostics ; Isopycnal coordinates
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    Rapid mixed layer depening by the combination of Langmuir and shear instabilities : a case study (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 40 (2010): 2381-2400, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4403.1.
    Description: Langmuir circulation (LC) is a turbulent upper-ocean process driven by wind and surface waves that contributes significantly to the transport of momentum, heat, and mass in the oceanic surface layer. The authors have previously performed a direct comparison of large-eddy simulations and observations of the upper-ocean response to a wind event with rapid mixed layer deepening. The evolution of simulated crosswind velocity variance and spatial scales, as well as mixed layer deepening, was only consistent with observations if LC effects are included in the model. Based on an analysis of these validated simulations, in this study the fundamental differences in mixing between purely shear-driven turbulence and turbulence with LC are identified. In the former case, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) production due to shear instabilities is largest near the surface, gradually decreasing to zero near the base of the mixed layer. This stands in contrast to the LC case in which at middepth range TKE production can be dominated by Stokes drift shear. Furthermore, the Eulerian mean vertical shear peaks near the base of the mixed layer so that TKE production by mean shear flow is elevated there. LC transports horizontal momentum efficiently downward leading to an along-wind velocity jet below LC downwelling regions at the base of the mixed layer. Locally enhanced vertical shear instabilities as a result of this jet efficiently erode the thermocline. In turn, enhanced breaking internal waves inject cold deep water into the mixed layer, where LC currents transport temperature perturbation advectively. Thus, LC and locally generated shear instabilities work intimately together to facilitate strongly the mixed layer deepening process.
    Description: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research through Grants N00014-09-M-0112 (TK) and N00014-06-1-0178 (AP, JT). Author TK also received support from a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Keywords: Mixed layer ; Shear structure/flows ; Wind effects ; Turbulence ; Thermocline ; Internal waves ; Advection
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    Residual sediment fluxes in weakly-to-periodically stratified estuaries and tidal inlets (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 1841–1861, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0231.1.
    Description: In this idealized numerical modeling study, the composition of residual sediment fluxes in energetic (e.g., weakly or periodically stratified) tidal estuaries is investigated by means of one-dimensional water column models, with some focus on the sediment availability. Scaling of the underlying dynamic equations shows dependence of the results on the Simpson number (relative strength of horizontal density gradient) and the Rouse number (relative settling velocity) as well as impacts of the Unsteadiness number (relative tidal frequency). Here, the parameter space given by the Simpson and Rouse numbers is mainly investigated. A simple analytical model based on the assumption of stationarity shows that for small Simpson and Rouse numbers sediment flux is down estuary and vice versa for large Simpson and Rouse numbers. A fully dynamic water column model coupled to a second-moment turbulence closure model allows to decompose the sediment flux profiles into contributions from the transport flux (product of subtidal velocity and sediment concentration profiles) and the fluctuation flux profiles (tidal covariance between current velocity and sediment concentration). Three different types of bottom sediment pools are distinguished to vary the sediment availability, by defining a time scale for complete sediment erosion. For short erosion times scales, the transport sediment flux may dominate, but for larger erosion time scales the fluctuation sediment flux largely dominates the tidal sediment flux. When quarter-diurnal components are added to the tidal forcing, up-estuary sediment fluxes are strongly increased for stronger and shorter flood tides and vice versa. The theoretical results are compared to field observations in a tidally energetic inlet.
    Description: Project funding was provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the framework of the Project ECOWS (Role of Estuarine Circulation for Transport of Suspended Particulate Matter in the Wadden Sea, BU 1199/11) and by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education in the framework of the Project PACE [The future of the Wadden Sea sediment fluxes: still keeping pace with sea level rise? (FKZ 03F0634A)].
    Description: 2014-03-01
    Keywords: Channel flows ; Coastal flows ; Mixing ; Transport ; Turbulence ; Single column models
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  • 42
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    Modeling and analysis of internal-tide generation and beamlike onshore propagation in the vicinity of shelfbreak canyons (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 834-849, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0179.1.
    Description: A hydrostatic numerical model with alongshore-uniform barotropic M2 tidal boundary forcing and idealized shelfbreak canyon bathymetries is used to study internal-tide generation and onshore propagation. A control simulation with Mid-Atlantic Bight representative bathymetry is supported by other simulations that serve to identify specific processes. The canyons and adjacent slopes are transcritical in steepness with respect to M2 internal wave characteristics. Although the various canyons are symmetrical in structure, barotropic-to-baroclinic energy conversion rates Cυ are typically asymmetrical within them. The resulting onshore-propagating internal waves are the strongest along beams in the horizontal plane, with the stronger beam in the control simulation lying on the side with higher Cυ. Analysis of the simulation results suggests that the cross-canyon asymmetrical Cυ distributions are caused by multiple-scattering effects on one canyon side slope, because the phase variation in the spatially distributed internal-tide sources, governed by variations in the orientation of the bathymetry gradient vector, allows resonant internal-tide generation. A less complex, semianalytical, modal internal wave propagation model with sources placed along the critical-slope locus (where the M2 internal wave characteristic is tangent to the seabed) and variable source phasing is used to diagnose the physics of the horizontal beams of onshore internal wave radiation. Model analysis explains how the cross-canyon phase and amplitude variations in the locally generated internal tides affect parameters of the internal-tide beams. Under the assumption that strong internal tides on continental shelves evolve to include nonlinear wave trains, the asymmetrical internal-tide generation and beam radiation effects may lead to nonlinear internal waves and enhanced mixing occurring preferentially on one side of shelfbreak canyons, in the absence of other influencing factors.
    Description: All three authors were supported by Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grant N00014-11-1-0701. WGZ was additionally supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant OCE-1154575, and TFD was additionally supported by NSF Grant OCE-1060430.
    Description: 2014-09-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Baroclinic flows ; Internal waves ; Ocean circulation ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Models and modeling ; Numerical analysis/modeling
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    Suppression of internal wave breaking in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current near topography (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 1466–1492, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0154.1.
    Description: Simultaneous full-depth microstructure measurements of turbulence and finestructure measurements of velocity and density are analyzed to investigate the relationship between turbulence and the internal wave field in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. These data reveal a systematic near-bottom overprediction of the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate by finescale parameterization methods in select locations. Sites of near-bottom overprediction are typically characterized by large near-bottom flow speeds and elevated topographic roughness. Further, lower-than-average shear-to-strain ratios indicative of a less near-inertial wave field, rotary spectra suggesting a predominance of upward internal wave energy propagation, and enhanced narrowband variance at vertical wavelengths on the order of 100 m are found at these locations. Finally, finescale overprediction is typically associated with elevated Froude numbers based on the near-bottom shear of the background flow, and a background flow with a systematic backing tendency. Agreement of microstructure- and finestructure-based estimates within the expected uncertainty of the parameterization away from these special sites, the reproducibility of the overprediction signal across various parameterization implementations, and an absence of indications of atypical instrument noise at sites of parameterization overprediction, all suggest that physics not encapsulated by the parameterization play a role in the fate of bottom-generated waves at these locations. Several plausible underpinning mechanisms based on the limited available evidence are discussed that offer guidance for future studies.
    Description: The SOFine project is funded by the United Kingdom’s Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) (Grant NE/G001510/1). SW acknowledges the support of anARCDiscovery Early CareerResearchAward (Grant DE120102927), as well as the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (Grant CE110001028). ACNG acknowledges the support of a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship (Grant NE/C517633/1).KLP acknowledges support fromWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds.
    Description: 2014-11-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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  • 44
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    Global patterns of diapycnal mixing from measurements of the turbulent dissipation rate (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 1854–1872, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0104.1.
    Description: The authors present inferences of diapycnal diffusivity from a compilation of over 5200 microstructure profiles. As microstructure observations are sparse, these are supplemented with indirect measurements of mixing obtained from (i) Thorpe-scale overturns from moored profilers, a finescale parameterization applied to (ii) shipboard observations of upper-ocean shear, (iii) strain as measured by profiling floats, and (iv) shear and strain from full-depth lowered acoustic Doppler current profilers (LADCP) and CTD profiles. Vertical profiles of the turbulent dissipation rate are bottom enhanced over rough topography and abrupt, isolated ridges. The geography of depth-integrated dissipation rate shows spatial variability related to internal wave generation, suggesting one direct energy pathway to turbulence. The global-averaged diapycnal diffusivity below 1000-m depth is O(10−4) m2 s−1 and above 1000-m depth is O(10−5) m2 s−1. The compiled microstructure observations sample a wide range of internal wave power inputs and topographic roughness, providing a dataset with which to estimate a representative global-averaged dissipation rate and diffusivity. However, there is strong regional variability in the ratio between local internal wave generation and local dissipation. In some regions, the depth-integrated dissipation rate is comparable to the estimated power input into the local internal wave field. In a few cases, more internal wave power is dissipated than locally generated, suggesting remote internal wave sources. However, at most locations the total power lost through turbulent dissipation is less than the input into the local internal wave field. This suggests dissipation elsewhere, such as continental margins.
    Description: This research was funded by the Climate Process Team (CPT) on internal wave–driven mixing throughNSF GrantOCE-0968721. GSC acknowledges support from NSF Grants OCE-0825266 (EXITS), OCE-1029483 (SPAM), and OCE-1029722 (MIXET). LDT and CBW acknowledge support from NSF Grant OCE-0927650. SWand ACNG acknowledge support from NERC Grant NE/G001510/1 (SOFine).
    Description: 2015-01-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Direct estimate of lateral eddy diffusivity upstream of Drake Passage (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 2593–2616, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0120.1.
    Description: The first direct estimate of the rate at which geostrophic turbulence mixes tracers across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is presented. The estimate is computed from the spreading of a tracer released upstream of Drake Passage as part of the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES). The meridional eddy diffusivity, a measure of the rate at which the area of the tracer spreads along an isopycnal across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, is 710 ± 260 m2 s−1 at 1500-m depth. The estimate is based on an extrapolation of the tracer-based diffusivity using output from numerical tracers released in a one-twentieth of a degree model simulation of the circulation and turbulence in the Drake Passage region. The model is shown to reproduce the observed spreading rate of the DIMES tracer and suggests that the meridional eddy diffusivity is weak in the upper kilometer of the water column with values below 500 m2 s−1 and peaks at the steering level, near 2 km, where the eddy phase speed is equal to the mean flow speed. These vertical variations are not captured by ocean models presently used for climate studies, but they significantly affect the ventilation of different water masses.
    Description: NSF support through Awards OCE-1233832, OCE-1232962, and OCE-1048926 is gratefully acknowledged.
    Description: 2015-04-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diffusion ; Eddies ; Ocean circulation ; Turbulence ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Isopycnal mixing
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Enhanced diapycnal diffusivity in intrusive regions of the Drake Passage (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1309-1321, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0068.1.
    Description: Direct measurements of oceanic turbulent parameters were taken upstream of and across Drake Passage, in the region of the Subantarctic and Polar Fronts. Values of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate ε estimated by microstructure are up to two orders of magnitude lower than previously published estimates in the upper 1000 m. Turbulence levels in Drake Passage are systematically higher than values upstream, regardless of season. The dissipation of thermal variance χ is enhanced at middepth throughout the surveys, with the highest values found in northern Drake Passage, where water mass variability is the most pronounced. Using the density ratio, evidence for double-diffusive instability is presented. Subject to double-diffusive physics, the estimates of diffusivity using the Osborn–Cox method are larger than ensemble statistics based on ε and the buoyancy frequency.
    Description: This work was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
    Description: 2016-10-05
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mixing ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Fronts ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Profilers, oceanic
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    Stratified turbulence and mixing efficiency in a salt wedge estuary (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1769-1783, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0193.1.
    Description: High-resolution observations of velocity, salinity, and turbulence quantities were collected in a salt wedge estuary to quantify the efficiency of stratified mixing in a high-energy environment. During the ebb tide, a midwater column layer of strong shear and stratification developed, exhibiting near-critical gradient Richardson numbers and turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rates greater than 10−4 m2 s−3, based on inertial subrange spectra. Collocated estimates of scalar variance dissipation from microconductivity sensors were used to estimate buoyancy flux and the flux Richardson number Rif. The majority of the samples were outside the boundary layer, based on the ratio of Ozmidov and boundary length scales, and had a mean Rif = 0.23 ± 0.01 (dissipation flux coefficient Γ = 0.30 ± 0.02) and a median gradient Richardson number Rig = 0.25. The boundary-influenced subset of the data had decreased efficiency, with Rif = 0.17 ± 0.02 (Γ = 0.20 ± 0.03) and median Rig = 0.16. The relationship between Rif and Rig was consistent with a turbulent Prandtl number of 1. Acoustic backscatter imagery revealed coherent braids in the mixing layer during the early ebb and a transition to more homogeneous turbulence in the midebb. A temporal trend in efficiency was also visible, with higher efficiency in the early ebb and lower efficiency in the late ebb when the bottom boundary layer had greater influence on the flow. These findings show that mixing efficiency of turbulence in a continuously forced, energetic, free shear layer can be significantly greater than the broadly cited upper bound from Osborn of 0.15–0.17.
    Description: Holleman was supported by the Devonshire Scholars program. The field study and the coauthors’ contributions were supported by NSF Grant OCE 0926427.
    Description: 2016-11-24
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Mixing ; Shear structure/flows ; Turbulence ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Ship observations
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    Comparison of direct covariance flux measurements from an offshore tower and a buoy (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 33 (2016): 873-890, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-15-0109.1.
    Description: Direct covariance flux (DCF) measurements taken from floating platforms are contaminated by wave-induced platform motions that need to be removed before computation of the turbulent fluxes. Several correction algorithms have been developed and successfully applied in earlier studies from research vessels and, most recently, by the use of moored buoys. The validation of those correction algorithms has so far been limited to short-duration comparisons against other floating platforms. Although these comparisons show in general a good agreement, there is still a lack of a rigorous validation of the method, required to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the existing motion-correction algorithms. This paper attempts to provide such a validation by a comparison of flux estimates from two DCF systems, one mounted on a moored buoy and one on the Air–Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT) at the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory, Massachusetts. The ASIT was specifically designed to minimize flow distortion over a wide range of wind directions from the open ocean for flux measurements. The flow measurements from the buoy system are corrected for wave-induced platform motions before computation of the turbulent heat and momentum fluxes. Flux estimates and cospectra of the corrected buoy data are found to be in very good agreement with those obtained from the ASIT. The comparison is also used to optimize the filter constants used in the motion-correction algorithm. The quantitative agreement between the buoy data and the ASIT demonstrates that the DCF method is applicable for turbulence measurements from small moving platforms, such as buoys.
    Description: This work was funded by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE04-24536 as part of the CLIVAR Mode Water Dynamic Experiment (CLIMODE).
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Boundary layer ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Air-sea interaction ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; Buoy observations ; Quality assurance/control
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    Dynamics of eddying abyssal mixing layers over sloping rough topography (2023)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2023-02-28
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12),(2022): 3199-3219, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0009.1.
    Description: The abyssal overturning circulation is thought to be primarily driven by small-scale turbulent mixing. Diagnosed water-mass transformations are dominated by rough topography “hotspots,” where the bottom enhancement of mixing causes the diffusive buoyancy flux to diverge, driving widespread downwelling in the interior—only to be overwhelmed by an even stronger upwelling in a thin bottom boundary layer (BBL). These water-mass transformations are significantly underestimated by one-dimensional (1D) sloping boundary layer solutions, suggesting the importance of three-dimensional physics. Here, we use a hierarchy of models to generalize this 1D boundary layer approach to three-dimensional eddying flows over realistically rough topography. When applied to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Brazil Basin, the idealized simulation results are roughly consistent with available observations. Integral buoyancy budgets isolate the physical processes that contribute to realistically strong BBL upwelling. The downward diffusion of buoyancy is primarily balanced by upwelling along the sloping canyon sidewalls and the surrounding abyssal hills. These flows are strengthened by the restratifying effects of submesoscale baroclinic eddies and by the blocking of along-ridge thermal wind within the canyon. Major topographic sills block along-thalweg flows from restratifying the canyon trough, resulting in the continual erosion of the trough’s stratification. We propose simple modifications to the 1D boundary layer model that approximate each of these three-dimensional effects. These results provide local dynamical insights into mixing-driven abyssal overturning, but a complete theory will also require the nonlocal coupling to the basin-scale circulation.
    Description: We acknowledge funding support from National Science Foundation Awards 1536515, 1736109, and 2149080. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant 174530.
    Description: 2023-05-18
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Diapycnal mixing ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
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    Eddy vertical structure and variability: deepglider observations in the North Atlantic (2023)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2023-02-28
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(6), (2022): 1091–1110, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0068.1.
    Description: Hundreds of full-depth temperature and salinity profiles collected by Deepglider autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the North Atlantic reveal robust signals in eddy isopycnal vertical displacement and horizontal current throughout the entire water column. In separate glider missions southeast of Bermuda, subsurface-intensified cold, fresh coherent vortices were observed with velocities exceeding 20 cm s−1 at depths greater than 1000 m. With vertical resolution on the order of 20 m or less, these full-depth glider slant profiles newly permit estimation of scaled vertical wavenumber spectra from the barotropic through the 40th baroclinic mode. Geostrophic turbulence theory predictions of spectral slopes associated with the forward enstrophy cascade and proportional to inverse wavenumber cubed generally agree with glider-derived quasi-universal spectra of potential and kinetic energy found at a variety of locations distinguished by a wide range of mean surface eddy kinetic energy. Water-column average spectral estimates merge at high vertical mode number to established descriptions of internal wave spectra. Among glider mission sites, geographic and seasonal variability implicate bottom drag as a mechanism for dissipation, but also the need for more persistent sampling of the deep ocean.
    Description: This work was funded by NSF Grant 1736217 and would not have been possible without the help of Kirk O’Donnell, James Bennett, Noel Pelland, and all contributors to Deepglider development. We additionally thank the captain crew of the R/V Atlantic Explorer and the BATS team at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, particularly Rod Johnson, as well as Seakeepers International for their professionalism, capability, and generous assistance in deploying and recovering gliders.
    Keywords: North Atlantic Ocean ; Eddies ; Mesoscale processes ; Turbulence ; Energy transport ; In situ oceanic observations ; Oceanic variability
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    Diapycnal displacement, diffusion, and distortion of tracers in the ocean (2023)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2023-03-02
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(12), (2022): 3221–3240, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-22-0010.1.
    Description: Small-scale mixing drives the diabatic upwelling that closes the abyssal ocean overturning circulation. Indirect microstructure measurements of in situ turbulence suggest that mixing is bottom enhanced over rough topography, implying downwelling in the interior and stronger upwelling in a sloping bottom boundary layer. Tracer release experiments (TREs), in which inert tracers are purposefully released and their dispersion is surveyed over time, have been used to independently infer turbulent diffusivities—but typically provide estimates in excess of microstructure ones. In an attempt to reconcile these differences, Ruan and Ferrari derived exact tracer-weighted buoyancy moment diagnostics, which we here apply to quasi-realistic simulations. A tracer’s diapycnal displacement rate is exactly twice the tracer-averaged buoyancy velocity, itself a convolution of an asymmetric upwelling/downwelling dipole. The tracer’s diapycnal spreading rate, however, involves both the expected positive contribution from the tracer-averaged in situ diffusion as well as an additional nonlinear diapycnal distortion term, which is caused by correlations between buoyancy and the buoyancy velocity, and can be of either sign. Distortion is generally positive (stretching) due to bottom-enhanced mixing in the stratified interior but negative (contraction) near the bottom. Our simulations suggest that these two effects coincidentally cancel for the Brazil Basin Tracer Release Experiment, resulting in negligible net distortion. By contrast, near-bottom tracers experience leading-order distortion that varies in time. Errors in tracer moments due to realistically sparse sampling are generally small (〈20%), especially compared to the O(1) structural errors due to the omission of distortion effects in inverse models. These results suggest that TREs, although indispensable, should not be treated as “unambiguous” constraints on diapycnal mixing.
    Description: We acknowledge funding support from National Science Foundation Awards 1536515 and 1736109. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant 174530. This research is also supported by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, administered by UCAR’s Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) under Award NA18NWS4620043B.
    Description: 2023-05-18
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Diffusion ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water ; Tracers
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    Dispersion in the open ocean seasonal pycnocline at scales of 1-10 km and 1-6 days (2020)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(2), (2020): 415-437, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0019.1.
    Description: Results are presented from two dye release experiments conducted in the seasonal thermocline of the Sargasso Sea, one in a region of low horizontal strain rate (~10−6 s−1), the second in a region of intermediate horizontal strain rate (~10−5 s−1). Both experiments lasted ~6 days, covering spatial scales of 1–10 and 1–50 km for the low and intermediate strain rate regimes, respectively. Diapycnal diffusivities estimated from the two experiments were κz = (2–5) × 10−6 m2 s−1, while isopycnal diffusivities were κH = (0.2–3) m2 s−1, with the range in κH being less a reflection of site-to-site variability, and more due to uncertainties in the background strain rate acting on the patch combined with uncertain time dependence. The Site I (low strain) experiment exhibited minimal stretching, elongating to approximately 10 km over 6 days while maintaining a width of ~5 km, and with a notable vertical tilt in the meridional direction. By contrast, the Site II (intermediate strain) experiment exhibited significant stretching, elongating to more than 50 km in length and advecting more than 150 km while still maintaining a width of order 3–5 km. Early surveys from both experiments showed patchy distributions indicative of small-scale stirring at scales of order a few hundred meters. Later surveys show relatively smooth, coherent distributions with only occasional patchiness, suggestive of a diffusive rather than stirring process at the scales of the now larger patches. Together the two experiments provide important clues as to the rates and underlying processes driving diapycnal and isopycnal mixing at these scales.
    Description: Results are presented from two dye release experiments conducted in the seasonal thermocline of the Sargasso Sea, one in a region of low horizontal strain rate (~10−6 s−1), the second in a region of intermediate horizontal strain rate (~10−5 s−1). Both experiments lasted ~6 days, covering spatial scales of 1–10 and 1–50 km for the low and intermediate strain rate regimes, respectively. Diapycnal diffusivities estimated from the two experiments were κz = (2–5) × 10−6 m2 s−1, while isopycnal diffusivities were κH = (0.2–3) m2 s−1, with the range in κH being less a reflection of site-to-site variability, and more due to uncertainties in the background strain rate acting on the patch combined with uncertain time dependence. The Site I (low strain) experiment exhibited minimal stretching, elongating to approximately 10 km over 6 days while maintaining a width of ~5 km, and with a notable vertical tilt in the meridional direction. By contrast, the Site II (intermediate strain) experiment exhibited significant stretching, elongating to more than 50 km in length and advecting more than 150 km while still maintaining a width of order 3–5 km. Early surveys from both experiments showed patchy distributions indicative of small-scale stirring at scales of order a few hundred meters. Later surveys show relatively smooth, coherent distributions with only occasional patchiness, suggestive of a diffusive rather than stirring process at the scales of the now larger patches. Together the two experiments provide important clues as to the rates and underlying processes driving diapycnal and isopycnal mixing at these scales.
    Description: 2020-08-06
    Keywords: Ocean ; Atlantic Ocean ; Diapycnal mixing ; Diffusion ; Dispersion ; Mixing
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    Shear turbulence in the high-wind Southern Ocean using direct measurements (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-10-12
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(10), (2022): 2325–2341, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0015.1.
    Description: The ocean surface boundary layer is a gateway of energy transfer into the ocean. Wind-driven shear and meteorologically forced convection inject turbulent kinetic energy into the surface boundary layer, mixing the upper ocean and transforming its density structure. In the absence of direct observations or the capability to resolve subgrid-scale 3D turbulence in operational ocean models, the oceanography community relies on surface boundary layer similarity scalings (BLS) of shear and convective turbulence to represent this mixing. Despite their importance, near-surface mixing processes (and ubiquitous BLS representations of these processes) have been undersampled in high-energy forcing regimes such as the Southern Ocean. With the maturing of autonomous sampling platforms, there is now an opportunity to collect high-resolution spatial and temporal measurements in the full range of forcing conditions. Here, we characterize near-surface turbulence under strong wind forcing using the first long-duration glider microstructure survey of the Southern Ocean. We leverage these data to show that the measured turbulence is significantly higher than standard shear-convective BLS in the shallower parts of the surface boundary layer and lower than standard shear-convective BLS in the deeper parts of the surface boundary layer; the latter of which is not easily explained by present wave-effect literature. Consistent with the CBLAST (Coupled Boundary Layers and Air Sea Transfer) low winds experiment, this bias has the largest magnitude and spread in the shallowest 10% of the actively mixing layer under low-wind and breaking wave conditions, when relatively low levels of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in surface regime are easily biased by wave events.
    Description: This paper is VIMS Contribution 4103. Computational resources were provided by the VIMS Ocean-Atmosphere and Climate Change Research Fund. AUSSOM was supported by the OCE Division of the National Science Foundation (1558639).
    Keywords: Turbulence ; Wind shear ; Boundary layer ; Parameterization
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    Microstructure mixing observations and finescale parameterizations in the Beaufort Sea (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(1), (2021): 19-35, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0233.1.
    Description: In the Beaufort Sea in September of 2015, concurrent mooring and microstructure observations were used to assess dissipation rates in the vicinity of 72°35′N, 145°1′W. Microstructure measurements from a free-falling profiler survey showed very low [O(10−10) W kg−1] turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates ε. A finescale parameterization based on both shear and strain measurements was applied to estimate the ratio of shear to strain Rω and ε at the mooring location, and a strain-based parameterization was applied to the microstructure survey (which occurred approximately 100 km away from the mooring site) for direct comparison with microstructure results. The finescale parameterization worked well, with discrepancies ranging from a factor of 1–2.5 depending on depth. The largest discrepancies occurred at depths with high shear. Mean Rω was 17, and Rω showed high variability with values ranging from 3 to 50 over 8 days. Observed ε was slightly elevated (factor of 2–3 compared with a later survey of 11 profiles taken over 3 h) from 25 to 125 m following a wind event which occurred at the beginning of the mooring deployment, reaching a maximum of ε= 6 × 10−10 W kg−1 at 30-m depth. Velocity signals associated with near-inertial waves (NIWs) were observed at depths greater than 200 m, where the Atlantic Water mass represents a reservoir of oceanic heat. However, no evidence of elevated ε or heat fluxes was observed in association with NIWs at these depths in either the microstructure survey or the finescale parameterization estimates.
    Description: This work was supported by NSF Grants PLR 14-56705 and PLR-1303791 and by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Grant DGE-1650112.
    Keywords: Ocean ; Arctic ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Diapycnal mixing
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    On the predictability of sea surface height around Palau (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(11), (2020): 3267–3294, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0310.1.
    Description: As part of the Flow Encountering Abrupt Topography (FLEAT) program, an array of pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) was deployed north of Palau where the westward-flowing North Equatorial Current encounters the southern end of the Kyushu–Palau Ridge in the tropical North Pacific. Capitalizing on concurrent observations from satellite altimetry, FLEAT Spray gliders, and shipboard hydrography, the PIESs’ 10-month duration hourly bottom pressure p and round-trip acoustic travel time τ records are used to examine the magnitude and predictability of sea level and pycnocline depth changes and to track signal propagations through the array. Sea level and pycnocline depth are found to vary in response to a range of ocean processes, with their magnitude and predictability strongly process dependent. Signals characterized here comprise the barotropic tides, semidiurnal and diurnal internal tides, southeastward-propagating superinertial waves, westward-propagating mesoscale eddies, and a strong signature of sea level increase and pycnocline deepening associated with the region’s relaxation from El Niño to La Niña conditions. The presence of a broad band of superinertial waves just above the inertial frequency was unexpected and the FLEAT observations and output from a numerical model suggest that these waves detected near Palau are forced by remote winds east of the Philippines. The PIES-based estimates of pycnocline displacement are found to have large uncertainties relative to overall variability in pycnocline depth, as localized deep current variations arising from interactions of the large-scale currents with the abrupt topography around Palau have significant travel time variability.
    Description: Support for this research was provided by Office of Naval Research Grants N00014-16-1-2668, N00014-18-1-2406, N00014-15-1-2488, and N00014-15-1-2622. R.C.M. was additionally supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Keywords: Tropics ; Currents ; Eddies ; ENSO ; Internal waves ; Mesoscale processes
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    Mixing and transformation in a deep western boundary current: a case study (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-27
    Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Spingys, C. P., Garabato, A. C. N., Legg, S., Polzin, K. L., Abrahamsen, E. P., Buckingham, C. E., Forryan, A., & Frajka-Williams, E. E. Mixing and transformation in a deep western boundary current: a case study. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 51(4), (2021): 1205-1222, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0132.1
    Description: Water-mass transformation by turbulent mixing is a key part of the deep-ocean overturning, as it drives the upwelling of dense waters formed at high latitudes. Here, we quantify this transformation and its underpinning processes in a small Southern Ocean basin: the Orkney Deep. Observations reveal a focusing of the transport in density space as a deep western boundary current (DWBC) flows through the region, associated with lightening and densification of the current’s denser and lighter layers, respectively. These transformations are driven by vigorous turbulent mixing. Comparing this transformation with measurements of the rate of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation indicates that, within the DWBC, turbulence operates with a high mixing efficiency, characterized by a dissipation ratio of 0.6 to 1 that exceeds the common value of 0.2. This result is corroborated by estimates of the dissipation ratio from microstructure observations. The causes of the transformation are unraveled through a decomposition into contributions dependent on the gradients in density space of the: dianeutral mixing rate, isoneutral area, and stratification. The transformation is found to be primarily driven by strong turbulence acting on an abrupt transition from the weakly stratified bottom boundary layer to well-stratified off-boundary waters. The reduced boundary layer stratification is generated by a downslope Ekman flow associated with the DWBC’s flow along sloping topography, and is further regulated by submesoscale instabilities acting to restratify near-boundary waters. Our results provide observational evidence endorsing the importance of near-boundary mixing processes to deep-ocean overturning, and highlight the role of DWBCs as hot spots of dianeutral upwelling.
    Description: CS, ACNG, AF, and EFW were supported by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Grant NE/K013181/1. ACNG was supported by the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation. EPA and CEB were supported by NERC Grant NE/K012843/1. CEB was funded by an MSCA grant (No. 798319) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. EPA was supported by NERC Grant NE/N018095/1. SL and KP were supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1536453 and OCE-1536779. SL acknowledges support of Award NA18OAR4320123 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the U.S. Department of Commerce.
    Keywords: Bottom currents ; Diapycnal mixing ; Turbulence ; Southern Ocean
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    Turbulent mixing variability in an energetic standing meander of the Southern Ocean (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-08-29
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(8), (2022): 1593-1611, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0180.1.
    Description: This study presents novel observational estimates of turbulent dissipation and mixing in a standing meander between the Southeast Indian Ridge and the Macquarie Ridge in the Southern Ocean. By applying a finescale parameterization on the temperature, salinity, and velocity profiles collected from Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats in the upper 1600 m, we estimated the intensity and spatial distribution of dissipation rate and diapycnal mixing along the float tracks and investigated the sources. The indirect estimates indicate strong spatial and temporal variability of turbulent mixing varying from O(10−6) to O(10−3) m2 s−1 in the upper 1600 m. Elevated turbulent mixing is mostly associated with the Subantarctic Front (SAF) and mesoscale eddies. In the upper 500 m, enhanced mixing is associated with downward-propagating wind-generated near-inertial waves as well as the interaction between cyclonic eddies and upward-propagating internal waves. In the study region, the local topography does not play a role in turbulent mixing in the upper part of the water column, which has similar values in profiles over rough and smooth topography. However, both remotely generated internal tides and lee waves could contribute to the upward-propagating energy. Our results point strongly to the generation of turbulent mixing through the interaction of internal waves and the intense mesoscale eddy field.
    Description: The observations were funded through grants from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP170102162) and Australia’s Marine National Facility. Surface drifters were provided by Dr. Shaun Dolk of the Global Drifter Program. AC was supported by an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. AC, HEP, and NLB acknowledge support from the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy National Environmental Science Program and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes. KP acknowledges the support from the National Science Foundation.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Eddies ; Fronts ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Ocean dynamics
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    Kinetic energy transfers between mesoscale and submesoscale motions in the open ocean’s upper layers (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-09-15
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(1),(2022): 75–97, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-21-0099.1.
    Description: Mesoscale eddies contain the bulk of the ocean’s kinetic energy (KE), but fundamental questions remain on the cross-scale KE transfers linking eddy generation and dissipation. The role of submesoscale flows represents the key point of discussion, with contrasting views of submesoscales as either a source or a sink of mesoscale KE. Here, the first observational assessment of the annual cycle of the KE transfer between mesoscale and submesoscale motions is performed in the upper layers of a typical open-ocean region. Although these diagnostics have marginal statistical significance and should be regarded cautiously, they are physically plausible and can provide a valuable benchmark for model evaluation. The cross-scale KE transfer exhibits two distinct stages, whereby submesoscales energize mesoscales in winter and drain mesoscales in spring. Despite this seasonal reversal, an inverse KE cascade operates throughout the year across much of the mesoscale range. Our results are not incompatible with recent modeling investigations that place the headwaters of the inverse KE cascade at the submesoscale, and that rationalize the seasonality of mesoscale KE as an inverse cascade-mediated response to the generation of submesoscales in winter. However, our findings may challenge those investigations by suggesting that, in spring, a downscale KE transfer could dampen the inverse KE cascade. An exploratory appraisal of the dynamics governing mesoscale–submesoscale KE exchanges suggests that the upscale KE transfer in winter is underpinned by mixed layer baroclinic instabilities, and that the downscale KE transfer in spring is associated with frontogenesis. Current submesoscale-permitting ocean models may substantially understate this downscale KE transfer, due to the models’ muted representation of frontogenesis.
    Description: The OSMOSIS experiment was funded by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through Grants NE/1019999/1 and NE/101993X/1. ACNG acknowledges the support of the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation, and XY that of a China Scholarship Council PhD studentship.
    Keywords: Ageostrophic circulations ; Dynamics ; Eddies ; Energy transport ; Frontogenesis/frontolysis ; Instability ; Mesoscale processes ; Nonlinear dynamics ; Ocean circulation ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Turbulence
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    Seasonality of the mesoscale inverse cascade as inferred from global scale-dependent eddy energy observations (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-09-01
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 52(8), (2022): 1677-1691, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0269.1.
    Description: Oceanic mesoscale motions including eddies, meanders, fronts, and filaments comprise a dominant fraction of oceanic kinetic energy and contribute to the redistribution of tracers in the ocean such as heat, salt, and nutrients. This reservoir of mesoscale energy is regulated by the conversion of potential energy and transfers of kinetic energy across spatial scales. Whether and under what circumstances mesoscale turbulence precipitates forward or inverse cascades, and the rates of these cascades, remain difficult to directly observe and quantify despite their impacts on physical and biological processes. Here we use global observations to investigate the seasonality of surface kinetic energy and upper-ocean potential energy. We apply spatial filters to along-track satellite measurements of sea surface height to diagnose surface eddy kinetic energy across 60–300-km scales. A geographic and scale-dependent seasonal cycle appears throughout much of the midlatitudes, with eddy kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km peaking 1–4 months before that at 60–300-km scales. Spatial patterns in this lag align with geographic regions where an Argo-derived estimate of the conversion of potential to kinetic energy is seasonally varying. In midlatitudes, the conversion rate peaks 0–2 months prior to kinetic energy at scales less than 60 km. The consistent geographic patterns between the seasonality of potential energy conversion and kinetic energy across spatial scale provide observational evidence for the inverse cascade and demonstrate that some component of it is seasonally modulated. Implications for mesoscale parameterizations and numerical modeling are discussed.
    Description: This work was generously funded by NSF Grants OCE-1912302, OCE-1912125 (Drushka), and OCE-1912325 (Abernathey) as part of the Ocean Energy and Eddy Transport Climate Process Team.
    Keywords: Eddies ; Energy transport ; Mesoscale processes ; Turbulence ; Oceanic mixed layer ; Altimetry ; Seasonal cycle
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    Acoustical measurement of nonlinear internal waves using the inverted echo sounder (2010)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 26 (2009): 2228-2242, doi:10.1175/2009JTECHO652.1.
    Description: The performance of pressure sensor–equipped inverted echo sounders for monitoring nonlinear internal waves is examined. The inverted echo sounder measures the round-trip acoustic travel time from the sea floor to the sea surface and thus acquires vertically integrated information on the thermal structure, from which the first baroclinic mode of thermocline motion may be inferred. This application of the technology differs from previous uses in that the wave period (30 min) is short, requiring a more rapid transmission rate and a different approach to the analysis. Sources of error affecting instrument performance include tidal effects, barotropic adjustment to internal waves, ambient acoustic noise, and sea surface roughness. The latter two effects are explored with a simulation that includes surface wave reconstruction, acoustic scattering based on the Kirchhoff approximation, wind-generated noise, sound propagation, and the instrument’s signal processing circuitry. Bias is introduced as a function of wind speed, but the simulation provides a basis for bias correction. The assumption that the waves do not significantly affect the mean stratification allows for a focus on the dynamic response. Model calculations are compared with observations in the South China Sea by using nearby temperature measurements to provide a test of instrument performance. After applying corrections for ambient noise and surface roughness effects, the inverted echo sounder exhibits an RMS variability of approximately 4 m in the estimated depth of the eigenfunction maximum in the wind speed range 0 ≤ U10 ≤ 10 m s−1. This uncertainty may be compared with isopycnal excursions for nonlinear internal waves of 100 m, showing that the observational approach is effective for measurements of nonlinear internal waves in this environment.
    Description: This project was supported by the ONR Nonlinear Wave Program under Contract N0014-05-1-0286.
    Keywords: Acoustic measurements/effects ; Internal waves ; Instrumentation/sensors ; Temperature
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    Diapycnal mixing in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (2011)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 41 (2011): 241-246, doi:10.1175/2010JPO4557.1.
    Description: The vertical dispersion of a tracer released on a density surface near 1500-m depth in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current west of Drake Passage indicates that the diapycnal diffusivity, averaged over 1 yr and over tens of thousands of square kilometers, is (1.3 ± 0.2) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Diapycnal diffusivity estimated from turbulent kinetic energy dissipation measurements about the area occupied by the tracer in austral summer 2010 was somewhat less, but still within a factor of 2, at (0.75 ± 0.07) × 10−5 m2 s−1. Turbulent diapycnal mixing of this intensity is characteristic of the midlatitude ocean interior, where the energy for mixing is believed to derive from internal wave breaking. Indeed, despite the frequent and intense atmospheric forcing experienced by the Southern Ocean, the amplitude of finescale velocity shear sampled about the tracer was similar to background amplitudes in the midlatitude ocean, with levels elevated to only 20%–50% above the Garrett–Munk reference spectrum. These results add to a long line of evidence that diapycnal mixing in the interior middepth ocean is weak and is likely too small to dictate the middepth meridional overturning circulation of the ocean.
    Description: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Grants OCE-0622825,OCE-0622670, OCE-0622630, and OCE-0623177.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Currents ; Antarctica ; Ocean circulation ; Meridional overturning circulation
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    Sensitivity of the ocean state to the vertical distribution of internal-tide-driven mixing (2013)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 602–615, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-055.1.
    Description: The ocean interior stratification and meridional overturning circulation are largely sustained by diapycnal mixing. The breaking of internal tides is a major source of diapycnal mixing. Many recent climate models parameterize internal-tide breaking using the scheme of St. Laurent et al. While this parameterization dynamically accounts for internal-tide generation, the vertical distribution of the resultant mixing is ad hoc, prescribing energy dissipation to decay exponentially above the ocean bottom with a fixed-length scale. Recently, Polzin formulated a dynamically based parameterization, in which the vertical profile of dissipation decays algebraically with a varying decay scale, accounting for variable stratification using Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) stretching. This study compares two simulations using the St. Laurent and Polzin formulations in the Climate Model, version 2G (CM2G), ocean–ice–atmosphere coupled model, with the same formulation for internal-tide energy input. Focusing mainly on the Pacific Ocean, where the deep low-frequency variability is relatively small, the authors show that the ocean state shows modest but robust and significant sensitivity to the vertical profile of internal-tide-driven mixing. Therefore, not only the energy input to the internal tides matters, but also where in the vertical it is dissipated.
    Description: This work is a component of the Internal- Wave Driven Mixing Climate Process Team funded by the National Science Foundation Grant OCE-0968721 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Award NA08OAR4320752.
    Description: 2013-09-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Ocean models ; Parameterization
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    Scaling turbulent dissipation in the transition layer (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 43 (2013): 2475–2489, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-057.1.
    Description: Data from three midlatitude, month-long surveys are examined for evidence of enhanced vertical mixing associated with the transition layer (TL), here defined as the strongly stratified layer that exists between the well mixed layer and the thermocline below. In each survey, microstructure estimates of turbulent dissipation were collected concurrently with fine-structure stratification and shear. Survey-wide averages are formed in a “TL coordinate” zTL, which is referenced around the depth of maximum stratification for each profile. Averaged profiles show characteristic TL structures such as peaks in stratification N2 and shear variance S2, which fall off steeply above zTL = 0 and more gradually below. Turbulent dissipation rates ɛ are 5–10 times larger than those found in the upper thermocline (TC). The gradient Richardson number Ri = N2/S2 becomes unstable (Ri 〈 0.25) within ~10 m of the TL upper boundary, suggesting that shear instability is active in the TL for zTL 〉 0. Ri is stable for zTL ≤ 0. Turbulent dissipation is found to scale exponentially with depth for zTL ≤ 0, but the decay scales are different for the TL and upper TC: ɛ scales well with either N2 or S2. Owing to the strong correlation between S2 and N2, existing TC scalings of the form ɛ ~ |S|p|N|q overpredict variations in ɛ. The scale dependence of shear variance is not found to significantly affect the scalings of ɛ versus N2 and S2 for zTL ≤ 0. However, the onset of unstable Ri at the top of the TL is sensitively dependent to the resolution of the shears.
    Description: This work was funded by NSF Grant OCE-0968787 as part of a Climate Process Team for internal wave-driven mixing.
    Keywords: Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Diapycnal mixing ; Mixed layer ; Thermocline ; Physical Meteorology and Climatology ; Heat budgets/fluxes ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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    Internal waves and mixing near the Kerguelen Plateau (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 417-437, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0055.1.
    Description: In the stratified ocean, turbulent mixing is primarily attributed to the breaking of internal waves. As such, internal waves provide a link between large-scale forcing and small-scale mixing. The internal wave field north of the Kerguelen Plateau is characterized using 914 high-resolution hydrographic profiles from novel Electromagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer (EM-APEX) floats. Altogether, 46 coherent features are identified in the EM-APEX velocity profiles and interpreted in terms of internal wave kinematics. The large number of internal waves analyzed provides a quantitative framework for characterizing spatial variations in the internal wave field and for resolving generation versus propagation dynamics. Internal waves observed near the Kerguelen Plateau have a mean vertical wavelength of 200 m, a mean horizontal wavelength of 15 km, a mean period of 16 h, and a mean horizontal group velocity of 3 cm s−1. The internal wave characteristics are dependent on regional dynamics, suggesting that different generation mechanisms of internal waves dominate in different dynamical zones. The wave fields in the Subantarctic/Subtropical Front and the Polar Front Zone are influenced by the local small-scale topography and flow strength. The eddy-wave field is influenced by the large-scale flow structure, while the internal wave field in the Subantarctic Zone is controlled by atmospheric forcing. More importantly, the local generation of internal waves not only drives large-scale dissipation in the frontal region but also downstream from the plateau. Some internal waves in the frontal region are advected away from the plateau, contributing to mixing and stratification budgets elsewhere.
    Description: A.M. was supported by the joint CSIRO-University of Tasmania Quantitative Marine Science (QMS) program and the 2009 CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship Collaborative Fund. K.L.P.’s salary support was provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution bridge support funds. B.M.S. was supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program.
    Description: 2016-06-07
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Southern Ocean ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Internal waves ; Mixing ; Wave properties ; Observational techniques and algorithms ; In situ oceanic observations ; Profilers, oceanic
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    Observations of the transfer of energy and momentum to the oceanic surface boundary layer beneath breaking waves (2016)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 1823-1837, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0165.1.
    Description: Measurements just beneath the ocean surface demonstrate that the primary mechanism by which energy from breaking waves is transmitted into the water column is through the work done by the covariance of turbulent pressure and velocity fluctuations. The convergence in the vertical transport of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) balances the dissipation rate of TKE at first order and is nearly an order of magnitude greater than the sum of the integrated Eulerian and Stokes shear production. The measured TKE transport is consistent with a simple conceptual model that assumes roughly half of the surface flux of TKE by wave breaking is transmitted to depths greater than the significant wave height. During conditions when breaking waves are inferred, the direction of momentum flux is more aligned with the direction of wave propagation than with the wind direction. Both the energy and momentum fluxes occur at frequencies much lower than the wave band, consistent with the time scales associated with wave breaking. The largest instantaneous values of momentum flux are associated with strong downward vertical velocity perturbations, in contrast to the pressure work, which is associated with strong drops in pressure and upward vertical velocity perturbations.
    Description: Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation Grants OCE-1339032 and OCE-1338518
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Energy transport ; Mixing ; Momentum ; Turbulence ; Wave breaking ; Waves, oceanic
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    Ekman veering, internal waves, and turbulence observed under Arctic sea ice (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 1306–1328, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-12-0191.1.
    Description: The ice–ocean system is investigated on inertial to monthly time scales using winter 2009–10 observations from the first ice-tethered profiler (ITP) equipped with a velocity sensor (ITP-V). Fluctuations in surface winds, ice velocity, and ocean velocity at 7-m depth were correlated. Observed ocean velocity was primarily directed to the right of the ice velocity and spiraled clockwise while decaying with depth through the mixed layer. Inertial and tidal motions of the ice and in the underlying ocean were observed throughout the record. Just below the ice–ocean interface, direct estimates of the turbulent vertical heat, salt, and momentum fluxes and the turbulent dissipation rate were obtained. Periods of elevated internal wave activity were associated with changes to the turbulent heat and salt fluxes as well as stratification primarily within the mixed layer. Turbulent heat and salt fluxes were correlated particularly when the mixed layer was closest to the freezing temperature. Momentum flux is adequately related to velocity shear using a constant ice–ocean drag coefficient, mixing length based on the planetary and geometric scales, or Rossby similarity theory. Ekman viscosity described velocity shear over the mixed layer. The ice–ocean drag coefficient was elevated for certain directions of the ice–ocean shear, implying an ice topography that was characterized by linear ridges. Mixing length was best estimated using the wavenumber of the beginning of the inertial subrange or a variable drag coefficient. Analyses of this and future ITP-V datasets will advance understanding of ice–ocean interactions and their parameterizations in numerical models.
    Description: Support for this study and the overall ITP program was provided by the National Science Foundation and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Support for S. Cole was partially though the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Devonshire Foundation.
    Description: 2014-11-01
    Keywords: Geographic location/entity ; Arctic ; Sea ice ; Circulation/ Dynamics ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Atm/Ocean Structure/ Phenomena ; Oceanic mixed layer
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    Moored turbulence measurements using pulse-coherent doppler sonar (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-06-10
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society , 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Zippel, S. F., Farrar, J. T., Zappa, C. J., Miller, U., St Laurent, L., Ijichi, T., Weller, R. A., McRaven, L., Nylund, S., & Le Bel, D. Moored turbulence measurements using pulse-coherent doppler sonar. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38(9), (2021): 1621–1639, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-21-0005.1.
    Description: Upper-ocean turbulence is central to the exchanges of heat, momentum, and gases across the air–sea interface and therefore plays a large role in weather and climate. Current understanding of upper-ocean mixing is lacking, often leading models to misrepresent mixed layer depths and sea surface temperature. In part, progress has been limited by the difficulty of measuring turbulence from fixed moorings that can simultaneously measure surface fluxes and upper-ocean stratification over long time periods. Here we introduce a direct wavenumber method for measuring turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rates ϵ from long-enduring moorings using pulse-coherent ADCPs. We discuss optimal programming of the ADCPs, a robust mechanical design for use on a mooring to maximize data return, and data processing techniques including phase-ambiguity unwrapping, spectral analysis, and a correction for instrument response. The method was used in the Salinity Processes Upper-Ocean Regional Study (SPURS) to collect two year-long datasets. We find that the mooring-derived TKE dissipation rates compare favorably to estimates made nearby from a microstructure shear probe mounted to a glider during its two separate 2-week missions for O(10−8) ≤ ϵ ≤ O(10−5) m2 s−3. Periods of disagreement between turbulence estimates from the two platforms coincide with differences in vertical temperature profiles, which may indicate that barrier layers can substantially modulate upper-ocean turbulence over horizontal scales of 1–10 km. We also find that dissipation estimates from two different moorings at 12.5 and at 7 m are in agreement with the surface buoyancy flux during periods of strong nighttime convection, consistent with classic boundary layer theory.
    Description: This work was funded by NASA as part of the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), supporting field work for SPURS-1 (NASA Grant NNX11AE84G), for SPURS-2 (NASA Grant NNX15AG20G), and for analysis (NASA Grant 80NSSC18K1494). Funding for early iterations of this project associated with the VOCALS project and Stratus 9 mooring was provided by NSF (Awards 0745508 and 0745442). Additional funding was provided by ONR Grant N000141812431 and NSF Award 1756839. The Stratus Ocean Reference Station is funded by the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (CPO FundRef Number 100007298), through the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR) under Cooperative Agreement NA14OAR4320158. Microstructure measurements made from the glider were supported by NSF (Award 1129646).
    Keywords: Ocean ; Turbulence ; Atmosphere-ocean interaction ; Boundary layer ; Oceanic mixed layer ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Near-resonances of superinertial and tidal fluctuations at islands (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-06-03
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2021. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 51(9), (2021): 2721–2733, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-20-0298.1.
    Description: A linear numerical model of an island or a tall seamount is used to explore superinertial leaky resonances forced by ambient vertically and horizontally uniform current fluctuations. The model assumes a circularly symmetric topography (including a shallow reef) and allows realistic stratification and bottom friction. As long as there is substantial stratification, a number of leaky resonances are found, and when the island’s flanks are narrow relative to the internal Rossby radius, some of the near-resonant modes resemble leaky internal Kelvin waves. Other “resonances” resemble higher radial mode long gravity waves as explored by Chambers. The near-resonances amplify the cross-reef velocities that help fuel biological activity. Results for cases with the central island replaced by a lagoon do not differ greatly from the island case which has land at the center. As an aside, insight is provided on the question of offshore boundary conditions for superinertial nearly trapped waves along a straight coast.
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves
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    Double diffusion, shear instabilities, and heat impacts of a pacific summer water intrusion in the Beaufort Sea (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
    Details
    Publication Date: 2022-06-13
    Description: © The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Fine, E., MacKinnon, J., Alford, M., Middleton, L., Taylor, J., Mickett, J., Cole, S., Couto, N., Boyer, A., & Peacock, T. Double diffusion, shear instabilities, and heat impacts of a pacific summer water intrusion in the Beaufort Sea. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 52(2), (2022): 189–203, https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-21-0074.1.
    Description: Pacific Summer Water eddies and intrusions transport heat and salt from boundary regions into the western Arctic basin. Here we examine concurrent effects of lateral stirring and vertical mixing using microstructure data collected within a Pacific Summer Water intrusion with a length scale of ∼20 km. This intrusion was characterized by complex thermohaline structure in which warm Pacific Summer Water interleaved in alternating layers of O(1) m thickness with cooler water, due to lateral stirring and intrusive processes. Along interfaces between warm/salty and cold/freshwater masses, the density ratio was favorable to double-diffusive processes. The rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy (ε) was elevated along the interleaving surfaces, with values up to 3 × 10−8 W kg−1 compared to background ε of less than 10−9 W kg−1. Based on the distribution of ε as a function of density ratio Rρ, we conclude that double-diffusive convection is largely responsible for the elevated ε observed over the survey. The lateral processes that created the layered thermohaline structure resulted in vertical thermohaline gradients susceptible to double-diffusive convection, resulting in upward vertical heat fluxes. Bulk vertical heat fluxes above the intrusion are estimated in the range of 0.2–1 W m−2, with the localized flux above the uppermost warm layer elevated to 2–10 W m−2. Lateral fluxes are much larger, estimated between 1000 and 5000 W m−2, and set an overall decay rate for the intrusion of 1–5 years.
    Description: This work was supported by ONR Grant N00014-16-1-2378 and NSF Grants PLR 14-56705 and PLR-1303791, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Grant DGE-1650112, as well as by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship.
    Keywords: Arctic ; Diapycnal mixing ; Diffusion ; Fluxes ; Instability ; Mixing ; Turbulence
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    Observed eddy-internal wave interactions in the Southern Ocean (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cusack, J. M., Brearley, J. A., Garabato, A. C. N., Smeed, D. A., Polzin, K. L., Velzeboer, N., & Shakespeare, C. J. Observed eddy-internal wave interactions in the Southern Ocean. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 50(10), (2020): 3042-3062, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-20-0001.1.
    Description: The physical mechanisms that remove energy from the Southern Ocean’s vigorous mesoscale eddy field are not well understood. One proposed mechanism is direct energy transfer to the internal wave field in the ocean interior, via eddy-induced straining and shearing of preexisting internal waves. The magnitude, vertical structure, and temporal variability of the rate of energy transfer between eddies and internal waves is quantified from a 14-month deployment of a mooring cluster in the Scotia Sea. Velocity and buoyancy observations are decomposed into wave and eddy components, and the energy transfer is estimated using the Reynolds-averaged energy equation. We find that eddies gain energy from the internal wave field at a rate of −2.2 ± 0.6 mW m−2, integrated from the bottom to 566 m below the surface. This result can be decomposed into a positive (eddy to wave) component, equal to 0.2 ± 0.1 mW m−2, driven by horizontal straining of internal waves, and a negative (wave to eddy) component, equal to −2.5 ± 0.6 mW m−2, driven by vertical shearing of the wave spectrum. Temporal variability of the transfer rate is much greater than the mean value. Close to topography, large energy transfers are associated with low-frequency buoyancy fluxes, the underpinning physics of which do not conform to linear wave dynamics and are thereby in need of further research. Our work suggests that eddy–internal wave interactions may play a significant role in the energy balance of the Southern Ocean mesoscale eddy and internal wave fields.
    Description: Funding for DIMES was provided by U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Grants NE/E007058/1 and NE/E005667/1. JMC acknowledges the support of a NERC PhD studentship, and ACNG that of the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation. NV acknowledges support from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEX) Honours Scholarship and the ANU PBSA Partnership - Spotless Scholarship. CJS acknowledges support from an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE180100087 and an Australian National University Futures Scheme award. Numerical simulations were conducted on the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) facility, Canberra, Australia. This study has been conducted using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments which helped to improve the manuscript significantly. Codes and output files are available online at the project repository (https://github.com/jessecusack/DIMES_eddy_wave_interactions).
    Keywords: Southern Ocean ; Eddies ; Internal waves ; Turbulence
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    Hydraulics and mixing of the deep overflow in the Lifamatola Passage of the Indonesian Seas (2021)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(9),(2020): 2797-2814, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-19-0326.1.
    Description: Hydrographic measurements recently acquired along the thalweg of the Lifamatola Passage combined with historical moored velocity measurements immediately downstream of the sill are used to study the hydraulics, transport, mixing, and entrainment in the dense overflow. The observations suggest that the mean overflow is nearly critical at the mooring site, suggesting that a weir formula may be appropriate for estimating the overflow transport. Our assessment suggests that the weir formulas corresponding to a rectangular, triangular, or parabolic cross section all result in transports very close to the observation, suggesting their potential usage in long-term monitoring of the overflow transport or parameterizing the transport in numerical models. Analyses also suggest that deep signals within the overflow layer are blocked by the shear flow from propagating upstream, whereas the shallow wave modes of the full-depth continuously stratified flow are able to propagate upstream from the Banda Sea into the Maluku Sea. Strong mixing is found immediately downstream of the sill crest, with Thorpe-scale-based estimates of the mean dissipation rate within the overflow up to 1.1 × 10−7 W kg−1 and the region-averaged diapycnal diffusivity within the downstream overflow in the range of 2.3 × 10−3 to 10.1 × 10−3 m2 s−1. Mixing in the Lifamatola Passage results in 0.6–1.2-Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) entrainment transport added to the overflow, enhancing the deep-water renewal in the Banda Sea. A bulk diffusivity coefficient estimated in the deep Banda Sea yields 1.6 × 10−3 ± 5 × 10−4 m2 s−1, with an associated downward turbulent heat flux of 9 W m−2.
    Description: This study is supported by NSFC (91858204), the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB42000000), NSFC(41720104008, 41421005, 41876025), QMSNL (2018SDKJ0104-02), and the Shandong Provincial projects (U1606402). L. Pratt was supported by the U.S. NSF Grant OCE-1657870.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Entrainment ; Internal waves ; Topographic effects ; In situ oceanic observations
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    Can we detect submesoscale motions in drifter pair dispersion? (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(9), (2019): 2237-2254, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0181.1.
    Description: A cluster of 45 drifters deployed in the Bay of Bengal is tracked for a period of four months. Pair dispersion statistics, from observed drifter trajectories and simulated trajectories based on surface geostrophic velocity, are analyzed as a function of drifter separation and time. Pair dispersion suggests nonlocal dynamics at submesoscales of 1–20 km, likely controlled by the energetic mesoscale eddies present during the observations. Second-order velocity structure functions and their Helmholtz decomposition, however, suggest local dispersion and divergent horizontal flow at scales below 20 km. This inconsistency cannot be explained by inertial oscillations alone, as has been reported in recent studies, and is likely related to other nondispersive processes that impact structure functions but do not enter pair dispersion statistics. At scales comparable to the deformation radius LD, which is approximately 60 km, we find dynamics in agreement with Richardson’s law and observe local dispersion in both pair dispersion statistics and second-order velocity structure functions.
    Description: This research was supported by the Air Sea Interaction Regional Initiative (ASIRI) under ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0451 (SE and AM) and ONR Grant N00014-13-1-0477 (VH and LC). Additionally, AM and SE thank NSF (Grant OCE-I434788) and ONR (Grant N00014-16-1-2470) for support; VH and LC were further supported by ONR Grant N00014-15-1-2286 and NOAA GDP Grant NA10OAR4320156. We thank Joe LaCasce, Dhruv Balwada, and one anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and discussions that significantly improved this manuscript. The authors thank the captain and crew of the R/V Roger Revelle. The SVP-type drifters are part of the Global Drifter Program and supported by ONR Grant N00014-15-1-2286 and NOAA GDP Grant NA10OAR4320156 and are available under http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dac/. The Ssalto/Duacs altimeter products were produced and distributed by the Copernicus Marine and Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS, http://www.marine.copernicus.eu).
    Keywords: Dispersion ; Fronts ; Mesoscale processes ; Subgrid-scale processes ; Trajectories ; Turbulence
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    Energy fluxes in coastal trapped waves (2020)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(12), (2019): 3061-3068, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0172.1.
    Description: The calculation of energy flux in coastal trapped wave modes is reviewed in the context of tidal energy pathways near the coast. The significant barotropic pressures and currents associated with coastal trapped wave modes mean that large errors in estimating the wave flux are incurred if only the baroclinic component is considered. A specific example is given showing that baroclinic flux constitutes only 10% of the flux in a mode-1 wave for a reasonable choice of stratification and bathymetry. The interpretation of baroclinic energy flux and barotropic-to-baroclinic conversion at the coast is discussed: in contrast to the open ocean, estimates of baroclinic energy flux do not represent a wave energy flux; neither does conversion represent the scattering of energy from the tidal Kelvin wave to higher modes.
    Description: This work was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship, and by NSF under Grant OCE-1756781. I am grateful to K. Brink for the many useful conversations that contributed to this work and to J. Toole for providing detailed comments on an early version of this paper. The comments of three anonymous reviewers were very helpful in improving this paper.
    Description: 2020-06-03
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves ; Topographic effects ; Waves, oceanic ; Tides
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    Persistent turbulence in the Samoan Passage (2020)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cusack, J. M., Voet, G., Alford, M. H., Girton, J. B., Carter, G. S., Pratt, L. J., Pearson-Potts, K. A., & Tan, S. Persistent turbulence in the Samoan Passage. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 49(12), (2019): 3179-3197, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-19-0116.1.
    Description: Abyssal waters forming the lower limb of the global overturning circulation flow through the Samoan Passage and are modified by intense mixing. Thorpe-scale-based estimates of dissipation from moored profilers deployed on top of two sills for 17 months reveal that turbulence is continuously generated in the passage. Overturns were observed in a density band in which the Richardson number was often smaller than ¼, consistent with shear instability occurring at the upper interface of the fast-flowing bottom water layer. The magnitude of dissipation was found to be stable on long time scales from weeks to months. A second array of 12 moored profilers deployed for a shorter duration but profiling at higher frequency was able to resolve variability in dissipation on time scales from days to hours. At some mooring locations, near-inertial and tidal modulation of the dissipation rate was observed. However, the modulation was not spatially coherent across the passage. The magnitude and vertical structure of dissipation from observations at one of the major sills is compared with an idealized 2D numerical simulation that includes a barotropic tidal forcing. Depth-integrated dissipation rates agree between model and observations to within a factor of 3. The tide has a negligible effect on the mean dissipation. These observations reinforce the notion that the Samoan Passage is an important mixing hot spot in the global ocean where waters are being transformed continuously.
    Description: The authors thank Zhongxiang Xao and Jody Klymak, who provided earlier setups of the numerical model, and also Arjun Jagannathan for insightful discussions on the subject of flow over topography. We also thank John Mickett and Eric Boget for their assistance in designing, deploying, and recovering the moorings. In addition, we also thank the crew and scientists aboard the R/V Revelle and R/V Thompson, without whom the data presented in this paper could not have been gathered. Ilker Fer and two anonymous reviewers provided thoughtful feedback that improved the paper. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants OCE-1029268, OCE-1029483, OCE-1657264, OCE-1657795, OCE-1657870, and OCE-1658027.
    Keywords: Gravity waves ; Turbulence ; Abyssal circulation ; Mixing ; Tides
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    Transformation and upwelling of bottom water in fracture zone valleys (2020)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 50(3), (2020): 715-726, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-19-0021.1.
    Description: Closing the overturning circulation of bottom water requires abyssal transformation to lighter densities and upwelling. Where and how buoyancy is gained and water is transported upward remain topics of debate, not least because the available observations generally show downward-increasing turbulence levels in the abyss, apparently implying mean vertical turbulent buoyancy-flux divergence (densification). Here, we synthesize available observations indicating that bottom water is made less dense and upwelled in fracture zone valleys on the flanks of slow-spreading midocean ridges, which cover more than one-half of the seafloor area in some regions. The fracture zones are filled almost completely with water flowing up-valley and gaining buoyancy. Locally, valley water is transformed to lighter densities both in thin boundary layers that are in contact with the seafloor, where the buoyancy flux must vanish to match the no-flux boundary condition, and in thicker layers associated with downward-decreasing turbulence levels below interior maxima associated with hydraulic overflows and critical-layer interactions. Integrated across the valley, the turbulent buoyancy fluxes show maxima near the sidewall crests, consistent with net convergence below, with little sensitivity of this pattern to the vertical structure of the turbulence profiles, which implies that buoyancy flux convergence in the layers with downward-decreasing turbulence levels dominates over the divergence elsewhere, accounting for the net transformation to lighter densities in fracture zone valleys. We conclude that fracture zone topography likely exerts a controlling influence on the transformation and upwelling of bottom water in many areas of the global ocean.
    Description: The data used in this study were collected in the context of several projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), in particular BBTRE (OCE-9415589 and OCE-9415598) and DoMORE (OCE-1235094). Funding for the analysis was provided as part of the NSF DoMORE and DECIMAL (OCE-1735618) projects. Author Ijichi is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Overseas Research Fellow. Comments on an early draft of this paper by Jim Ledwell and Bryan Kaiser, as well as topical discussions with Jörn Callies and Trevor McDougall, are gratefully acknowledged. The paper was greatly improved during the review process, in particular because of the critical comments from one of the two anonymous reviewers.
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Topographic effects ; Turbulence ; Upwelling/downwelling ; Bottom currents/bottom water
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    Total exchange flow, entrainment, and diffusive salt flux in estuaries (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1205-1220, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0258.1.
    Description: The linkage among total exchange flow, entrainment, and diffusive salt flux in estuaries is derived analytically using salinity coordinates, revealing the simple but important relationship between total exchange flow and mixing. Mixing is defined and quantified in this paper as the dissipation of salinity variance. The method uses the conservation of volume and salt to quantify and distinguish the diahaline transport of volume (i.e., entrainment) and diahaline diffusive salt flux. A numerical model of the Hudson estuary is used as an example of the application of the method in a realistic estuary with a persistent but temporally variable exchange flow. A notable finding of this analysis is that the total exchange flow and diahaline salt flux are out of phase with respect to the spring–neap cycle. Total exchange flow reaches its maximum near minimum neap tide, but diahaline salt transport reaches its maximum during the maximum spring tide. This phase shift explains the strong temporal variation of stratification and estuarine salt content through the spring–neap cycle. In addition to quantifying temporal variation, the method reveals the spatial variation of total exchange flow, entrainment, and diffusive salt flux through the estuary. For instance, the analysis of the Hudson estuary indicates that diffusive salt flux is intensified in the wider cross sections. The method also provides a simple means of quantifying numerical mixing in ocean models because it provides an estimate of the total dissipation of salinity variance, which is the sum of mixing due to the turbulence closure and numerical mixing.
    Description: T. Wang was supported by the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research (Grant SKLEC-KF201509), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 2017B03514), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant XDA11010203). W. R. Geyer was supported by NSF Grant OCE 0926427 and ONR Grant N00014-16-1-2948. P. MacCready was supported by NSF Grant OCE-1634148.
    Description: 2017-09-14
    Keywords: Baroclinic flows ; Conservation equations ; Diapycnal mixing ; Diffusion ; Entrainment ; Mixing
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    Dynamics of a turbulent buoyant plume in a stratified fluid : an idealized model of subglacial discharge in Greenland fjords (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2611-2630, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0259.1.
    Description: This study reports the results of large-eddy simulations of an axisymmetric turbulent buoyant plume in a stratified fluid. The configuration used is an idealized model of the plume generated by a subglacial discharge at the base of a tidewater glacier with an ambient stratification typical of Greenland fjords. The plume is discharged from a round source of various diameters and characteristic stratifications for summer and winter are considered. The classical theory for the integral parameters of a turbulent plume in a homogeneous fluid gives accurate predictions in the weakly stratified lower layer up to the pycnocline, and the plume dynamics are not sensitive to changes in the source diameter. In winter, when the stratification is similar to an idealized two-layer case, turbulent entrainment and generation of internal waves by the plume top are in agreement with the theoretical and numerical results obtained for turbulent jets in a two-layer stratification. In summer, instead, the stratification is more complex and turbulent entrainment by the plume top is significantly reduced. The subsurface layer in summer is characterized by a strong density gradient and the oscillating plume generates internal waves that might serve as an indicator of submerged plumes not penetrating to the surface.
    Description: This work was supported by Linné FLOW Centre at KTH and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence program (Grant 307331) (E. E.) and VR Swedish Research Council, Outstanding Young Researcher Award, Grant VR 2014-5001 (L. B.). Support to C. C. was given by the NSF Project OCE-1434041.
    Description: 2018-04-26
    Keywords: Buoyancy ; Internal waves ; Turbulence ; Jets ; Oscillations ; Large eddy simulations
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    Dynamics and energetics of trapped diurnal internal Kelvin waves around a midlatitude lsland (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 2479-2498, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0167.1.
    Description: The generation of trapped and radiating internal tides around Izu‐Oshima Island located off Sagami Bay, Japan, is investigated using the three-dimensional Stanford Unstructured Nonhydrostatic Terrain-following Adaptive Navier–Stokes Simulator (SUNTANS) that is validated with observations of isotherm displacements in shallow water. The model is forced by barotropic tides, which generate strong baroclinic internal tides in the study region. Model results showed that when diurnal K1 barotropic tides dominate, resonance of a trapped internal Kelvin wave leads to large-amplitude internal tides in shallow waters on the coast. This resonance produces diurnal motions that are much stronger than the semidiurnal motions. The weaker, freely propagating, semidiurnal internal tides are generated on the western side of the island, where the M2 internal tide beam angle matches the topographic slope. The internal wave energy flux due to the diurnal internal tides is much higher than that of the semidiurnal tides in the study region. Although the diurnal internal tide energy is trapped, this study shows that steepening of the Kelvin waves produces high-frequency internal tides that radiate from the island, thus acting as a mechanism to extract energy from the diurnal motions.
    Description: This study was supported by JST CREST Grant Number JPRMJCR12A6.
    Description: 2018-04-12
    Keywords: Pacific Ocean ; Internal waves ; Kelvin waves ; In situ oceanic observations ; Baroclinic models ; Ocean models
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    Turbulent mixing in a deep fracture zone on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1873-1896, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0264.1.
    Description: Midocean ridge fracture zones channel bottom waters in the eastern Brazil Basin in regions of intensified deep mixing. The mechanisms responsible for the deep turbulent mixing inside the numerous midocean fracture zones, whether affected by the local or the nonlocal canyon topography, are still subject to debate. To discriminate those mechanisms and to discern the canyon mean flow, two moorings sampled a deep canyon over and away from a sill/contraction. A 2-layer exchange flow, accelerated at the sill, transports 0.04–0.10-Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) up canyon in the deep layer. At the sill, the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy ε increases as measured from microstructure profilers and as inferred from a parameterization of vertical kinetic energy. Cross-sill density and microstructure transects reveal an overflow potentially hydraulically controlled and modulated by fortnightly tides. During spring to neap tides, ε varies from O(10−9) to O(10−10) W kg−1 below 3500 m around the 2-layer interface. The detection of temperature overturns during tidal flow reversal, which almost fully opposes the deep up-canyon mean flow, confirms the canyon middepth enhancement of ε. The internal tide energy flux, particularly enhanced at the sill, compares with the lower-layer energy loss across the sill. Throughout the canyon away from the sill, near-inertial waves with downward-propagating energy dominate the internal wave field. The present study underlines the intricate pattern of the deep turbulent mixing affected by the mean flow, internal tides, and near-inertial waves.
    Description: The DoMORE project was supported by NSF under the Grant OCE-1235094.
    Description: 2018-01-13
    Keywords: Abyssal circulation ; Bottom currents/bottom water ; Diapycnal mixing
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    On the development of SWOT in situ calibration/validation for short-wavelength ocean topography (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-11-01
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 39(5), (2022): 595–617, https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-21-0039.1.
    Description: The future Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission aims to map sea surface height (SSH) in wide swaths with an unprecedented spatial resolution and subcentimeter accuracy. The instrument performance needs to be verified using independent measurements in a process known as calibration and validation (Cal/Val). The SWOT Cal/Val needs in situ measurements that can make synoptic observations of SSH field over an O(100) km distance with an accuracy matching the SWOT requirements specified in terms of the along-track wavenumber spectrum of SSH error. No existing in situ observing system has been demonstrated to meet this challenge. A field campaign was conducted during September 2019–January 2020 to assess the potential of various instruments and platforms to meet the SWOT Cal/Val requirement. These instruments include two GPS buoys, two bottom pressure recorders (BPR), three moorings with fixed conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) and CTD profilers, and a glider. The observations demonstrated that 1) the SSH (hydrostatic) equation can be closed with 1–3 cm RMS residual using BPR, CTD mooring and GPS SSH, and 2) using the upper-ocean steric height derived from CTD moorings enable subcentimeter accuracy in the California Current region during the 2019/20 winter. Given that the three moorings are separated at 10–20–30 km distance, the observations provide valuable information about the small-scale SSH variability associated with the ocean circulation at frequencies ranging from hourly to monthly in the region. The combined analysis sheds light on the design of the SWOT mission postlaunch Cal/Val field campaign.
    Description: The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). All authors are supported by the SWOT project. J. T. Farrar was partially supported by NASA NNX16AH76G.
    Description: 2022-11-01
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Ocean dynamics ; Small scale processes ; Altimetry ; Global positioning systems (GPS) ; In situ oceanic observations ; Ship observations
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    A coupled-mode shallow-water model for tidal analysis : internal tide reflection and refraction by the Gulf Stream (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2016): 3661-3679, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0018.1.
    Description: A hydrostatic, coupled-mode, shallow-water model (CSW) is described and used to diagnose and simulate tidal dynamics in the greater Mid-Atlantic Bight region. The reduced-physics model incorporates realistic stratification and topography, internal tide forcing from a priori estimates of the surface tide, and advection terms that describe first-order interactions of internal tides with slowly varying mean flow and mean buoyancy fields and their respective shear. The model is validated via comparisons with semianalytic models and nonlinear primitive equation models in several idealized and realistic simulations that include internal tide interactions with topography and mean flows. Then, 24 simulations of internal tide generation and propagation in the greater Mid-Atlantic Bight region are used to diagnose significant internal tide interactions with the Gulf Stream. The simulations indicate that locally generated mode-one internal tides refract and/or reflect at the Gulf Stream. The redirected internal tides often reappear at the shelf break, where their onshore energy fluxes are intermittent (i.e., noncoherent with surface tide) because meanders in the Gulf Stream alter their precise location, phase, and amplitude. These results provide an explanation for anomalous onshore energy fluxes that were previously observed at the New Jersey shelf break and linked to the irregular generation of nonlinear internal waves.
    Description: We thank the National Science Foundation for support under Grant OCE-1061160 (ShelfIT) to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and under Grant OCE-1060430 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. PFJL and PJH also thank the Office of Naval Research for research support under Grants N00014-11-1-0701 (MURI-IODA), N00014-12-1-0944 (ONR6.2), and N00014-13-1-0518 (Multi-DA) to MIT.
    Description: 2017-06-14
    Keywords: Continental shelf/slope ; Inertia-gravity waves ; Internal waves ; Boundary currents ; Tides ; Baroclinic models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Oblique internal hydraulic jumps at a stratified estuary mouth (2017)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 85-100, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-15-0234.1.
    Description: Observations and analyses of two tidally recurring, oblique, internal hydraulic jumps at a stratified estuary mouth (Columbia River, Oregon/Washington) are presented. These hydraulic features have not previously been studied due to the challenges of both horizontally resolving the sharp gradients and temporally resolving their evolution in numerical models and traditional observation platforms. The jumps, both of which recurred during ebb, formed adjacent to two engineered lateral channel constrictions and were identified in marine radar image time series. Jump occurrence was corroborated by (i) a collocated sharp gradient in the surface currents measured via airborne along-track interferometric synthetic aperture radar and (ii) the transition from supercritical to subcritical flow in the cross-jump direction via shipborne velocity and density measurements. Using a two-layer approximation, observed jump angles at both lateral constrictions are shown to lie within the theoretical bounds given by the critical internal long-wave (Froude) angle and the arrested maximum-amplitude internal bore angle, respectively. Also, intratidal and intertidal variability of the jump angles are shown to be consistent with that expected from the two-layer model, applied to varying stratification and current speed over a range of tidal and river discharge conditions. Intratidal variability of the upchannel jump angle is similar under all observed conditions, whereas the downchannel jump angle shows an additional association with stratification and ebb velocity during the low discharge periods. The observations additionally indicate that the upchannel jump achieves a stable position that is collocated with a similarly oblique bathymetric slope.
    Description: We acknowledge the financial support of the Office of Naval Research under Awards N00014-10-1-0932 and N00014-13-1-0364.
    Description: 2017-07-04
    Keywords: Estuaries ; Baroclinic flows ; Internal waves ; Microwave observations ; Remote sensing
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Some new aspects of the joint effect of rotation and topography on internal solitary waves. (2019)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 49(6), (2019): 1639-1649, doi: 10.1175/JPO-D-18-0154.1.
    Description: Using a recently developed asymptotic theory of internal solitary wave propagation over a sloping bottom in a rotating ocean, some new qualitative and quantitative features of this process are analyzed for internal waves in a two-layer ocean. The interplay between different singularities—terminal damping due to radiation and disappearing quadratic nonlinearity, and reaching an “internal beach” (e.g., zero lower-layer depth)—is discussed. Examples of the adiabatic evolution of a single solitary wave over a uniformly sloping bottom under realistic conditions are considered in more detail and compared with numerical solutions of the variable-coefficient, rotation-modified Korteweg–de Vries (rKdV) equation.
    Description: LAO is thankful to Yu. Stepanyants for broad discussions of mutual benefit. KRH was supported by Grant N00014-18-1-2542 from the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2020-06-13
    Keywords: Internal waves ; Differential equations ; Nonlinear models ; Ocean models
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    Combined effect of rotation and topography on shoaling oceanic internal solitary waves (2014)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014): 1116–1132, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-13-0194.1.
    Description: Internal solitary waves commonly observed in the coastal ocean are often modeled by a nonlinear evolution equation of the Korteweg–de Vries type. Because these waves often propagate for long distances over several inertial periods, the effect of Earth’s background rotation is potentially significant. The relevant extension of the Kortweg–de Vries is then the Ostrovsky equation, which for internal waves does not support a steady solitary wave solution. Recent studies using a combination of asymptotic theory, numerical simulations, and laboratory experiments have shown that the long time effect of rotation is the destruction of the initial internal solitary wave by the radiation of small-amplitude inertia–gravity waves, and the eventual emergence of a coherent, steadily propagating, nonlinear wave packet. However, in the ocean, internal solitary waves are often propagating over variable topography, and this alone can cause quite dramatic deformation and transformation of an internal solitary wave. Hence, the combined effects of background rotation and variable topography are examined. Then the Ostrovsky equation is replaced by a variable coefficient Ostrovsky equation whose coefficients depend explicitly on the spatial coordinate. Some numerical simulations of this equation, together with analogous simulations using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model (MITgcm), for a certain cross section of the South China Sea are presented. These demonstrate that the combined effect of shoaling and rotation is to induce a secondary trailing wave packet, induced by enhanced radiation from the leading wave.
    Description: KH was supported by Grants N00014-09-10227 and N00014-11-0701 from the Office of Naval Research.
    Description: 2014-10-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Internal waves ; Solitary waves ; Models and modeling ; Nonlinear models
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Rapid generation of upwelling at a shelf break caused by buoyancy shutdown (2015)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 45 (2015): 294–312, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-14-0104.1.
    Description: Model analyses of an alongshelf flow over a continental shelf and slope reveal upwelling near the shelf break. A stratified, initially uniform, alongshelf flow undergoes a rapid adjustment with notable differences onshore and offshore of the shelf break. Over the shelf, a bottom boundary layer and an offshore bottom Ekman transport develop within an inertial period. Over the slope, the bottom offshore transport is reduced from the shelf’s bottom transport by two processes. First, advection of buoyancy downslope induces vertical mixing, destratifying, and thickening the bottom boundary layer. The downward-tilting isopycnals reduce the geostrophic speed near the bottom. The reduced bottom stress weakens the offshore Ekman transport, a process known as buoyancy shutdown of the Ekman transport. Second, the thickening bottom boundary layer and weakening near-bottom speeds are balanced by an upslope ageostrophic transport. The convergence in the bottom transport induces adiabatic upwelling offshore of the shelf break. For a time period after the initial adjustment, scalings are identified for the upwelling speed and the length scale over which it occurs. Numerical experiments are used to test the scalings for a range of initial speeds and stratifications. Upwelling occurs within an inertial period, reaching values of up to 10 m day−1 within 2 to 7 km offshore of the shelf break. Upwelling drives an interior secondary circulation that accelerates the alongshelf flow over the slope, forming a shelfbreak jet. The model results are compared with upwelling estimates from other models and observations near the Middle Atlantic Bight shelf break.
    Description: J. Benthuysen acknowledges support from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (CE110001028) and the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, where this work was initiated.
    Description: 2015-07-01
    Keywords: Circulation/ Dynamics ; Boundary currents ; Diapycnal mixing ; Ekman pumping/transport ; Mixing ; Topographic effects ; Upwelling/downwelling
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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    Geometry of the meridional overturning circulation at the Last Glacial Maximum (2022)
    American Meteorological Society
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    Publication Date: 2023-02-01
    Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2022. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 35(17), (2022): 5465-5482, https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-21-0671.1.
    Description: Understanding the contribution of ocean circulation to glacial–interglacial climate change is a major focus of paleoceanography. Specifically, many have tried to determine whether the volumes and depths of Antarctic- and North Atlantic–sourced waters in the deep ocean changed at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ∼22–18 kyr BP) when atmospheric pCO2 concentrations were 100 ppm lower than the preindustrial. Measurements of sedimentary geochemical proxies are the primary way that these deep ocean structural changes have been reconstructed. However, the main proxies used to reconstruct LGM Atlantic water mass geometry provide conflicting results as to whether North Atlantic–sourced waters shoaled during the LGM. Despite this, a number of idealized modeling studies have been advanced to describe the physical processes resulting in shoaled North Atlantic waters. This paper aims to critically assess the approaches used to determine LGM Atlantic circulation geometry and lay out best practices for future work. We first compile existing proxy data and paleoclimate model output to deduce the processes responsible for setting the ocean distributions of geochemical proxies in the LGM Atlantic Ocean. We highlight how small-scale mixing processes in the ocean interior can decouple tracer distributions from the large-scale circulation, complicating the straightforward interpretation of geochemical tracers as proxies for water mass structure. Finally, we outline promising paths toward ascertaining the LGM circulation structure more clearly and deeply.
    Description: S.K.H. was supported by the Investment in Science Fund at WHOI and the John E. and Anne W. Sawyer Endowed Fund in Support of Scientific Staff. F.J.P. was supported by a Stanback Postdoctoral Fellowship at Caltech.
    Description: 2023-02-01
    Keywords: Diapycnal mixing ; Meridional overturning circulation ; Ocean circulation
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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