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- Author or Editor: Kial D. Stewart x
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Abstract
The role of the ocean in Earth’s climate is fundamentally influenced by the locally dominant stratifying property (heat or salt), which in turn can be used to categorize the ocean into three classes: alpha, beta, and transition zone oceans. Alpha and beta oceans are regions where the stratification is permanently set by heat and salt, respectively. Transition zone oceans exist between alpha and beta oceans and are regions where the stratification is seasonally or intermittently set by heat or salt. Despite their large ranges of temperature and salinity, transition zone oceans are the most weakly stratified regions of the upper oceans, making them ideal locations for thermobaric effects arising from the nonlinear equation of state of seawater. Here a novel definition and quantification of alpha, beta, and transition zone oceans is presented and used to analyze 4 years (2010–13) of hydrographic data developed from the Argo profiling float array. Two types of thermobaric instabilities are defined and identified in the hydrographic data. The first type arises from the vertical relocation of individual water parcels. The second type is novel and relates to the effect of pressure on the stratification through the pressure dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient; water that is stably stratified for one pressure is not necessarily stable for other pressures. The upper 1500 m of the global ocean is composed of 67% alpha, 15% beta, and 17% transition zone oceans, with 5.7% identified as thermobarically unstable. Over 63% of these thermobarically unstable waters exist in transition zone oceans, suggesting that these are important locations for efficient vertical transport of water-mass properties.
Abstract
The role of the ocean in Earth’s climate is fundamentally influenced by the locally dominant stratifying property (heat or salt), which in turn can be used to categorize the ocean into three classes: alpha, beta, and transition zone oceans. Alpha and beta oceans are regions where the stratification is permanently set by heat and salt, respectively. Transition zone oceans exist between alpha and beta oceans and are regions where the stratification is seasonally or intermittently set by heat or salt. Despite their large ranges of temperature and salinity, transition zone oceans are the most weakly stratified regions of the upper oceans, making them ideal locations for thermobaric effects arising from the nonlinear equation of state of seawater. Here a novel definition and quantification of alpha, beta, and transition zone oceans is presented and used to analyze 4 years (2010–13) of hydrographic data developed from the Argo profiling float array. Two types of thermobaric instabilities are defined and identified in the hydrographic data. The first type arises from the vertical relocation of individual water parcels. The second type is novel and relates to the effect of pressure on the stratification through the pressure dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient; water that is stably stratified for one pressure is not necessarily stable for other pressures. The upper 1500 m of the global ocean is composed of 67% alpha, 15% beta, and 17% transition zone oceans, with 5.7% identified as thermobarically unstable. Over 63% of these thermobarically unstable waters exist in transition zone oceans, suggesting that these are important locations for efficient vertical transport of water-mass properties.
Abstract
The role of externally imposed rates of small-scale mixing in an overturning circulation forced by differential surface buoyancy fluxes is examined in a laboratory experiment. The circulation occupies the full volume and involves a dense turbulent plume against the endwall and a broad upwelling throughout the interior. For strong externally imposed stirring, turbulent diffusion is the primary means of vertical density transport in the flow, and the dependence of the equilibrated circulation on the mixing rate accords with a theoretical model; the overturning rate increases as the ¼ power of the turbulent diffusivity. For weak externally imposed stirring, advection is the dominant mechanism of vertical density transport, and the circulation is independent of the rate of external stirring. The rate of vertical density transport is parameterized as a bulk diffusivity obtained from different methods, including one from a Munk-like advection–diffusion balance and another from the transport of buoyancy across the surface. For strong stirring, the bulk diffusivities returned by the various methods agree with the externally imposed mixing rate. However, the parameterizations implicitly include a nondiffusive component of vertical transport associated with advection of the density field and it is shown that, for weak stirring, the bulk diffusivities exceed the externally imposed mixing rate. For the oceans, results suggest that the primary effect of mixing (with energy sourced from winds, tides, and convection) is to deepen the thermocline, thereby influencing the entrainment and consequent vertical transport of density in the dense sinking regions. It is concluded that this advective transport of density, and not vertical mixing, is crucial for coupling the surface to the abyss.
Abstract
The role of externally imposed rates of small-scale mixing in an overturning circulation forced by differential surface buoyancy fluxes is examined in a laboratory experiment. The circulation occupies the full volume and involves a dense turbulent plume against the endwall and a broad upwelling throughout the interior. For strong externally imposed stirring, turbulent diffusion is the primary means of vertical density transport in the flow, and the dependence of the equilibrated circulation on the mixing rate accords with a theoretical model; the overturning rate increases as the ¼ power of the turbulent diffusivity. For weak externally imposed stirring, advection is the dominant mechanism of vertical density transport, and the circulation is independent of the rate of external stirring. The rate of vertical density transport is parameterized as a bulk diffusivity obtained from different methods, including one from a Munk-like advection–diffusion balance and another from the transport of buoyancy across the surface. For strong stirring, the bulk diffusivities returned by the various methods agree with the externally imposed mixing rate. However, the parameterizations implicitly include a nondiffusive component of vertical transport associated with advection of the density field and it is shown that, for weak stirring, the bulk diffusivities exceed the externally imposed mixing rate. For the oceans, results suggest that the primary effect of mixing (with energy sourced from winds, tides, and convection) is to deepen the thermocline, thereby influencing the entrainment and consequent vertical transport of density in the dense sinking regions. It is concluded that this advective transport of density, and not vertical mixing, is crucial for coupling the surface to the abyss.
