ESC seminar No. 17

Wind ringing of the ocean in presence of mesoscale eddies

Date
June 22(Thu.), 2006, 14:00 - 15:00
Place
Meeting room 1 & 2, 2F Conference building, YES
Speaker
Dr. Patrice Klein (IFREMER/Centre de Brest)
Language
English

Abstract

One important question raised by recent review studies (Wunsch and Ferrari, 2004) is the identification of the small-scale mixing processes in the ocean interior. Here we show that the inertial energy forced by the high-frequency winds at the surface, in presence of mesoscale eddies, can be a serious candidate for the mixing in the ocean interior. Indeed the relation between the inertial waves and the mesoscale and submesoscale eddies and filaments make this inertial energy to penetrate deep into the ocean interior. The result is the emergence of vertical velocity up to 100m/day at 3000m depth. The relevance of this mechanism is emphasized by the well-known remarkable coincidence of the atmospheric stormtracks and the oceanic regions of intensified mesoscale activities.

Contact

Hideharu Sasaki
Earth Simulator Center
TEL. : 045-778-5843
e-mail: sasaki