A Marginal Stability Paradigm for Shear-Induced Diapycnal Turbulent Mixing in the Ocean
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Geophysical Research Letters
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Volume
49
Issue
2
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AO
VoR
Metadata
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Mashayek, A., Baker, L., Cael, B., & Caulfield, C. (2022). A Marginal Stability Paradigm for Shear-Induced Diapycnal Turbulent Mixing in the Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 49 (2) https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095715
Abstract
Abstract: Turbulent mixing induced by breaking internal waves is key to the ocean circulation and global tracer budgets. While the classic marginal shear instability of Richardson number ∼1/4 has been considered as potentially relevant to turbulent wave breaking, its relevance to flows that are not steady parallel shear flows has been suspect. We show that shear instability is indeed relevant in the ocean interior and propose a new marginal stability paradigm that relates the stability criterion based on Richardson number to one based on the ratio of Ozmidov and Thorpe turbulence scales. The new paradigm applies to both ocean interior and boundary layer flows. This allows for accurate quantification of the transition from downwelling to upwelling zones in a recently emerged paradigm of ocean circulation. Our results help climate models more accurately calculate the mixing‐driven deep ocean circulation and fluxes of tracers in the ocean interior.
Keywords
Oceans, ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES, Turbulence, NONLINEAR GEOPHYSICS, OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL, Fine structure and microstructure, Internal and inertial waves, Turbulence, diffusion, and mixing processes, SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS, Research Letter, ocean mixing, stratified turbulence, shear instability, intermittency of turbulence
Identifiers
grl63541, 2021gl095715
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL095715
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333097
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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