Effects of Submesoscale Ocean Turbulence on Buoyant and Passive Tracers

Abstract:

Recent studies have shown that submesoscale processes greatly influence the dynamics and structure of the oceanic mixed layer. These processes have a substantial impact, in particular, on the transport of momentum, buoyancy, and passive tracers such as carbonate chemical species, nutrients, and plankton. It has been suggested that the vertical transfer of both active buoyancy and passive tracers can be described by the same vertical flux profile, thus permitting the use of one flux profile when parameterizing the effects of submoescale processes on tracer transport. Within the submesoscale range, however, both partly geostrophic fronts and eddies, which act to restratify the mixed layer, and small-scale three-dimensional turbulence, which acts to enhance vertical mixing, are simultaneously active, thus giving rise to complex multiscale interactions between turbulence and tracer dynamics. In this talk, large eddy simulations spanning the range of scales from 20km down to 5m are used to examine the role of multiscale turbulent mixing on both an active buoyancy tracer and several nonreactive passive ocean tracers from interior and sea-surface sources. The simulations include the effects of both small-scale wave-driven Langmuir turbulence and larger submesoscale eddies. Tracer properties are characterized using spatial fields and statistics, multiscale fluxes, and spectra. Results show that while submesoscale eddies transport buoyancy upward to extract potential energy, the same is not true of passive tracers. Instead, the suppression of turbulent vertical mixing in active submesoscale regions leads to suppressed entrainment of tracers, implying weaker transport by submesoscale activity. These results along with implications for the development of reduced order tracer models will be discussed.