Observations of the variability of turbulent dissipation the inner shelf

On the inner shelf, gradual changes to the cross-shore and vertical structure of stratification are set by the vertical divergence or convergence of turbulent buoyancy fluxes. Here we will directly quantify the turbulent buoyancy fluxes from measurements made on a coastal California inner shelf over a three-month period at Point Sal, CA. Observations include shipboard observations from profiling microstructure instrumentation, drifting near-surface floats and moored microstructure instrumentation. We will present detailed estimates of the lateral variability of the temporally-averaged dissipation from various regions on the inner shelf. Turbulence is systematically larger in shallower reaches of the inner shelf, which may be associated with a preferred location of breaking non-linear internal waves and associated high-frequency dynamics. Additionally, due to the complicated nature of the inner shelf off of Point Sal, headlands and their associated wake-eddies are also likely drivers of enhanced mixing.