OS33E-01:
Multi-Eady models of surface and deep instabilities

Wednesday, 17 December 2014: 1:40 PM
Glenn Flierl1, Raffaele M Ferrari1, Baylor Fox-Kemper2 and Jörn Callies1, (1)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, (2)Brown University, Providence, RI, United States
Abstract:
There is growing evidence that the upper ocean is host to vigorous turbulence
generated by baroclinic instabilities of lateral density fronts. We present a
QG model for studying baroclinic instabilities of a weakly stratified surface
layer coupled to a deeper layer. The general model has constant N layers,
rather than constant density, and can accommodate density jumps as well to
represent the seasonal thermocline. On the f-plane, this "stacked Eady" model
is exact; on the beta-plane, it can still be used as an approximation which,
unlike the standard layer model, allows for instabilities associated with SST
gradients. We discuss the linear instabilities and a numerical example of the
fully-developed turbulence.