Mesoscale-submesoscale interactions in the Gulf of Mexico: From oil dispersion to climate

Annalisa Bracco, Guangpeng Liu and Daoxun Sun

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2019, vol. 119, issue C, 63-72

Abstract: In the ocean, forcing acts at planetary scales and dissipation at the microscales. In between are the mesoscales, in a lot of respects akin to nearly two-dimensional, quasi-geostrophically, balanced turbulence. Eddies and fronts, extending from ten to hundred kilometers, represent their best-known dynamical expression. At the ocean boundary layers, near the surface and at the bottom, smaller ageostrophic, coherent flow structures may appear in the form of vorticity filaments, density fronts or coherent vortices, with typical scales of hundreds of meters to few kilometers and a lifespan of few days. These so-called submesoscale circulations provide a pathway for energy transfer towards smaller scales, contribute to the global overturning budget, and impact substantially lateral and diapycnal mixing. They develop in presence of density gradients in the turbulent boundary layers, and their statistics are not well known in a global sense, but are likely to change in the future due to projected changes in near surface stratification.

Keywords: Ocean dispersion; Mesoscales; Submesoscales; Mixing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:119:y:2019:i:c:p:63-72

DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2018.12.012

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