IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v7y2016i1d10.1038_ncomms12811.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Topographic generation of submesoscale centrifugal instability and energy dissipation

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Gula

    (Univ. Brest, CNRS, IRD, Ifremer, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), IUEM)

  • M. Jeroen Molemaker

    (Univ. Brest, CNRS, IRD, Ifremer, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), IUEM
    University of California)

  • James C. McWilliams

    (University of California)

Abstract

Most of the ocean kinetic energy is contained in the large scale currents and the vigorous geostrophic eddy field, at horizontal scales of order 100 km. To achieve equilibrium the geostrophic currents must viscously dissipate their kinetic energy at much smaller scale. However, geostrophic turbulence is characterized by an inverse cascade of energy towards larger scale, and the pathways of energy toward dissipation are still in question. Here, we present a mechanism, in the context of the Gulf Stream, where energy is transferred from the geostrophic flow to submesoscale wakes through anticyclonic vertical vorticity generation in the bottom boundary layer. The submesoscale turbulence leads to elevated local dissipation and mixing outside the oceanic boundary layers. This process is generic for boundary slope currents that flow in the direction of Kelvin wave propagation. Topographic generation of submesoscale flows potentially provides a new and significant route to energy dissipation for geostrophic flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Gula & M. Jeroen Molemaker & James C. McWilliams, 2016. "Topographic generation of submesoscale centrifugal instability and energy dissipation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12811
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12811
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12811
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms12811?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bracco, Annalisa & Liu, Guangpeng & Sun, Daoxun, 2019. "Mesoscale-submesoscale interactions in the Gulf of Mexico: From oil dispersion to climate," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 63-72.
    2. Mathieu Morvan & Xavier Carton, 2020. "Sub-Mesoscale Frontal Instabilities in the Omani Coastal Current," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12811. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.