Enhanced internal tidal mixing in the Philippine Sea mesoscale environment

You, Jia; Xu, Zhenhua; Li, Qun; Robertson, Robin; Zhang, Peiwen; Yin, Baoshu

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-28-271-2021

Articles | Volume 28, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-28-271-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Nonlinear internal waves

https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-28-271-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 28, issue 2

Research article

|

25 May 2021

Research article |

| 25 May 2021

Enhanced internal tidal mixing in the Philippine Sea mesoscale environment

Jia You, Zhenhua Xu, Qun Li, Robin Robertson, Peiwen Zhang, and Baoshu Yin

Data sets

User Manual for Global Argo Observational data set (V3.0) (1997-2019) Z. Li, Z. Liu, and X. Xing ftp://ftp.argo.org.cn/pub/ARGO/global/

ERA Interim ECMWF https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-full-daily/levtype=sfc/

Global estimates of internal tide generation rates at 1/30◦ resolution S. Falahat J. Nycander, C. de Lavergne, F. Roquet, G. Madec, and C. Vic https://doi.org/10.17882/58153

Ssalto/Duacs multimission altimeter products AVISO+ http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/duacs/

Short summary

Turbulent mixing in the ocean is mainly attributed to internal wave breaking, but the modulation of the mesoscale environment is unclear. The spatially inhomogeneous and seasonally variable diapycnal diffusivities in the upper Philippine Sea were estimated from Argo float data using a strain-based, fine-scale parameterization. Internal tides contributed significant diapycnal mixing here, with the mesoscale environment greatly regulating the intensity and spatial inhomogeneity of tidal mixing.