Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence
Although the strongest ocean surface currents occur at horizontal scales of order 100 km, recent numerical simulations suggest that flows smaller than these mesoscale eddies can achieve important vertical transports in the upper ocean. These submesoscale flows, 1–100 km in horizontal extent, take he...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Nature Publishing Group
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97177 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3736-1956 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2278-2811 |
| _version_ | 1826212126076698624 |
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| author | Ferrari, Raffaele Klymak, Jody M. Gula, Jonathan Callies, Joern |
| author2 | Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering Ferrari, Raffaele Klymak, Jody M. Gula, Jonathan Callies, Joern |
| author_sort | Ferrari, Raffaele |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Although the strongest ocean surface currents occur at horizontal scales of order 100 km, recent numerical simulations suggest that flows smaller than these mesoscale eddies can achieve important vertical transports in the upper ocean. These submesoscale flows, 1–100 km in horizontal extent, take heat and atmospheric gases down into the interior ocean, accelerating air–sea fluxes, and bring deep nutrients up into the sunlit surface layer, fueling primary production. Here we present observational evidence that submesoscale flows undergo a seasonal cycle in the surface mixed layer: they are much stronger in winter than in summer. Submesoscale flows are energized by baroclinic instabilities that develop around geostrophic eddies in the deep winter mixed layer at a horizontal scale of order 1–10 km. Flows larger than this instability scale are energized by turbulent scale interactions. Enhanced submesoscale activity in the winter mixed layer is expected to achieve efficient exchanges with the permanent thermocline below. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:16:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/97177 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:16:47Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/971772022-10-02T01:52:19Z Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence Ferrari, Raffaele Klymak, Jody M. Gula, Jonathan Callies, Joern Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Callies, Joern Ferrari, Raffaele Although the strongest ocean surface currents occur at horizontal scales of order 100 km, recent numerical simulations suggest that flows smaller than these mesoscale eddies can achieve important vertical transports in the upper ocean. These submesoscale flows, 1–100 km in horizontal extent, take heat and atmospheric gases down into the interior ocean, accelerating air–sea fluxes, and bring deep nutrients up into the sunlit surface layer, fueling primary production. Here we present observational evidence that submesoscale flows undergo a seasonal cycle in the surface mixed layer: they are much stronger in winter than in summer. Submesoscale flows are energized by baroclinic instabilities that develop around geostrophic eddies in the deep winter mixed layer at a horizontal scale of order 1–10 km. Flows larger than this instability scale are energized by turbulent scale interactions. Enhanced submesoscale activity in the winter mixed layer is expected to achieve efficient exchanges with the permanent thermocline below. United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant ONR-N00014-09-1-0458) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant NSF-OCE-1233832) 2015-06-03T16:04:09Z 2015-06-03T16:04:09Z 2015-04 2014-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2041-1723 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97177 Callies, Jorn, Raffaele Ferrari, Jody M. Klymak, and Jonathan Gula. “Seasonality in Submesoscale Turbulence.” Nature Communications 6 (April 21, 2015): 6862. © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3736-1956 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2278-2811 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7862 Nature Communications Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group Nature Publishing Group |
| spellingShingle | Ferrari, Raffaele Klymak, Jody M. Gula, Jonathan Callies, Joern Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title | Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title_full | Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title_fullStr | Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title_short | Seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| title_sort | seasonality in submesoscale turbulence |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97177 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3736-1956 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2278-2811 |
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