Interaction of Jets and Submesoscale Dynamics Leads to Rapid Ocean Ventilation

ABSTRACT Ocean ventilation is the process by which climatically important tracers such as heat and carbon are exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean interior. In this paper a series of numerical simulations are used to study the interaction of submesoscales and a topographically steered jet in d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of physical oceanography Vol. 50; no. 10; pp. 2873 - 2883
Main Authors Bachman, Scott D., Klocker, Andreas
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston American Meteorological Society 01.10.2020
Subjects
Atmosphere
Eddy kinetic energy
Heat exchange
Kinetic energy
Mathematical models
Numerical simulations
Oceans
Potential vorticity
Tracer transport
Tracers
Ventilation
Vorticity
Wind
Wind stress
Southern Ocean
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Summary:ABSTRACT Ocean ventilation is the process by which climatically important tracers such as heat and carbon are exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean interior. In this paper a series of numerical simulations are used to study the interaction of submesoscales and a topographically steered jet in driving rapid ventilation. The ventilation is found to increase both as a function of wind stress and model resolution, with a submesoscale-resolving 1/120° model exhibiting the largest ventilation rate. The jet in this simulation is found to be persistently unstable to submesoscale instabilities, which are known to feature intense vertical circulations. The vertical tracer transport is found to scale as a function of the eddy kinetic energy and mean isopycnal slope, whose behaviors change as a function of the wind stress and due to the emergence of a strong potential vorticity gradient due to the lateral shear of the jet. These results highlight the importance of jet–submesoscale interaction as a bridge between the atmosphere and the ocean interior.
ISSN:0022-3670
1520-0485
DOI:10.1175/JPO-D-20-0117.1