Modeling Mesoscale Eddies: the Effects of Resolution onOcean Turbulence
Name
Brock,Lucy_eaps_SB_2025_thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
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44.01 MB
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Adobe PDF
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487e83c52870d02bc31843ab7e7ff415
Author(s)
Brock, Lucy
Advisor(s)
Ferrari, Raffaele
Date Issued
May 2025
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
We describe a non-adiabatic idealized model for studying mesoscale turbulence in the global ocean. Using the ocean model Oceananigans, we perform a grid refinement study to determine the minimal resolution required to represent mesoscale eddies in the primitive equations. Convergence is evaluated through several metrics, including surface and depth-integrated kinetic energy, spectra, and zonally-averaged temperature, in order to establish quantitative resolution thresholds for physical fidelity. We find that while coarse-resolution simulations capture large-scale flow features, key mesoscale dynamics—including vertical stratification gradients and kinetic energy spectra—only converge at resolutions finer than 1/4°. Differences between the 1/8° and 1/16° simulations are small, suggesting that 1/8° resolution may be sufficient for resolving the mesoscale eddy field for many diagnostic purposes in idealized setups.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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