Saturation of the Internal Tides and Induced Mixing in the Abyssal Ocean
Name
Muller-2009-Saturation of the In.pdf
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3.25 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Buhler, Oliver
Muller, Caroline
Date Issued
January 2009
Journal
Journal of Physical Oceanography
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Muller, Caroline J, and Oliver Bühler. “Saturation of the Internal Tides and Induced Mixing in the Abyssal Ocean.” Journal of Physical Oceanography 39.9 (2009): 2077-2096. ©2009 American Meteorological Society.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
As part of an ongoing effort to develop a parameterization of wave-induced abyssal mixing, the authors derive an heuristic model for nonlinear wave breaking and energy dissipation associated with internal tides. Then the saturation and dissipation of internal tides for idealized and observed topography samples are investigated. One of the main results is that the wave-induced mixing could be more intense and more confined to the bottom than previously assumed in numerical models. Furthermore, in this model wave breaking and mixing clearly depend on the small scales of the topography below 10 km or so, which is below the current resolution of global bathymetry. This motivates the use of a statistical approach to represent the unresolved topography when addressing the role of internal tides in mixing the deep ocean.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009jpo4141.1
