Baroclinic Instability in the Presence of Convection
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jpo-d-17-0028.1.pdf
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Author(s)
Callies, Jörn
Ferrari, Raffaele
Date Issued
January 2018
Journal
Journal of Physical Oceanography
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Citation
Callies, Jörn, and Raffaele Ferrari. “Baroclinic Instability in the Presence of Convection.” Journal of Physical Oceanography 48, 1 (January 2018): 45–60 © 2018 American Meteorological Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Baroclinic mixed-layer instabilities have recently been recognized as an important source of submesoscale energy in deep winter mixed layers. While the focus has so far been on the balanced dynamics of these instabilities, they occur in and depend on an environment shaped by atmospherically forced small-scale turbulence. In this study, idealized numerical simulations are presented that allow the development of both baroclinic instability and convective small-scale turbulence, with simple control over the relative strength. If the convection is only weakly forced, baroclinic instability restratifies the layer and shuts off convection, as expected. With increased forcing, however, it is found that baroclinic instabilities are remarkably resilient to the presence of convection. Even if the instability is too weak to restratify the layer and shut off convection, the instability still grows in the convecting environment and generates baroclinic eddies and fronts. This suggests that despite the vigorous atmospherically forced small-scale turbulence in winter mixed layers, baroclinic instabilities can persistently grow, generate balanced submesoscale turbulence, and modify the bulk properties of the upper ocean. Keywords: Baroclinic flows; Convection; Ocean dynamics; Oceanic mixed layer
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
https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-17-0028.1
