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). Thomas and Shakespeare (2015) described a mode water formation mechanism involving the mixing of cross-front temperature–salinity contrasts, cabbeling, and frontogenesis that has the potential to select the density, temperature, and salinity of a particular mode water. The fronts that border mode waters are characterized by density-compensated temperature and salinity contrasts that decrease in magnitude with depth. Along-isopycnal mixing of the disparate water masses across the fronts leads to an
). Thomas and Shakespeare (2015) described a mode water formation mechanism involving the mixing of cross-front temperature–salinity contrasts, cabbeling, and frontogenesis that has the potential to select the density, temperature, and salinity of a particular mode water. The fronts that border mode waters are characterized by density-compensated temperature and salinity contrasts that decrease in magnitude with depth. Along-isopycnal mixing of the disparate water masses across the fronts leads to an
( Urakawa and Hasumi 2012 ). Urakawa and Hasumi noted that the water mass transformation ascribable to cabbeling in their simulations was strongly influenced by numerical diffusion. This implies that processes that cascade temperature and salinity variance from the mesoscale to the grid scale of their model are essential to the mechanism. One process of particular relevance is frontogenesis, that is, the intensification of horizontal tracer gradients by a strain field. In the next section, we describe
( Urakawa and Hasumi 2012 ). Urakawa and Hasumi noted that the water mass transformation ascribable to cabbeling in their simulations was strongly influenced by numerical diffusion. This implies that processes that cascade temperature and salinity variance from the mesoscale to the grid scale of their model are essential to the mechanism. One process of particular relevance is frontogenesis, that is, the intensification of horizontal tracer gradients by a strain field. In the next section, we describe
