Broadbridge, M. B. and Naveira Garabato, A. C. and Nurser, A. J. G.
abstract: The hypothesis that the impingement of mesoscale eddy flows on small-scale topography regulates diapycnal mixing and meridional overturning across the deep Southern Ocean is assessed in an idealized model. The model simulates an eddying circumpolar current coupled to a double-celled meridional overturning with properties broadly resembling those of the Southern Ocean circulation and represents lee wave-induced diapycnal mixing using an online formulation grounded on wave radiation theory. The diapycnal mixing generated by the simulated eddy field is found to play a major role in sustaining the lower overturning cell in the model, and to underpin a significant sensitivity of this cell to wind forcing. The vertical structure of lower overturning is set by mesoscale eddies, which propagate the effects of near-bottom diapycnal mixing by displacing isopycnals vertically.
@article{Broadbridge-etal-2016,
author = {Broadbridge, M. B. and Naveira~Garabato, A. C. and Nurser, A. J. G.},
title = {Forcing of the overturning circulation across a circumpolar channel by internal wave breaking},
journal = {J. Geophys. Res.},
year = {2016},
pages = {5436--5451},
volume = {121},
issue = {8},
doi = {10.1002/2015JC011597},
url = {https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/397467/}
}
