A Study of Deep and Abyssal Mixing Processes in the South and Equatorial Atlantic Oceans

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole MA

Investigators

Abstract

0217075 Toole Analysis of existing finestructure and microstructure data will be conducted. The data, derived from two recent investigations of ocean mixing processes: the Brazil Basin Tracer Release Experiment and the study of Circulation in the Romanche Fracture Zone, consist of vertical profile observations from the High-Resolution Profiler and moored current meter measurements. Several signals in these data will be explored, documented, and presented in the scientific literature that address (1) the nature of the finescale shear and strain and the associated turbulent dissipation in the abyssal ocean above rough bathymetry (at subtropical latitudes and on the equator), (2) the flow within a mid-ocean ridge fracture, (3) the intensity and spatial distribution of turbulent dissipation in a field of equatorially trapped deep jets, and (4) the intensity of the mid-depth internal wave field and associated mixing at tropical latitudes away from the immediate vicinity of the equator. The projects are related by the common goal of improving understanding of mixing and diapycnal transport in the deep ocean.