Parameterization of Eddy Fluxes in the Ocean Surface Mixed Layer

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT PI/Institution: Ferrari / MIT Proposal No: OCE-0241528 Distributions of active and passive tracers in the ocean surface mixed layer are of central importance in oceanography, and in studies of the atmosphere-ocean climate system. First, the water masses in the upper ocean are eventually subducted in the ocean interior and strongly affect the overall ocean circulation. Second, the mixed layer is in direct contact with the atmospheric forcing and controls the exchange of properties between the ocean and the atmosphere. Recent observations in the Northern Pacific and in the Southern Ocean suggest that tracer transport by baroclinic eddies play a fundamental role in the physics of the upper ocean. However, parameterizations of unresolved eddy motions in the upper layers of coarse resolution models are extremely crude, if not absent. The primary objectives of this proposal are to improve our understanding of the physics of eddy transport in the upper ocean, and to develop and test parameterizations for the mixed layer eddy transport appropriate for coarse resolution models. This research will benefit from and contribute to the Climate Modeling Initiative, a collaboration between scientists at MIT aimed at developing a state of the art model of the atmosphere and ocean for study of the climate of the Earth. The close interaction with people involved in the development of the MIT ocean model will help to disseminate the results in the modeling community as progress is made. In order to get students at MIT interested in this research, the principal investigator will present the basic concepts underlying eddy parameterization in large scale ocean-atmosphere models during a graduate course on geophysical turbulence, to be offered at MIT in the spring of 2003. Finally, a student of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Physical Oceanography, will actively participate in the research.