Abstract

The Surface Boundary Layer (SBL) interfaces the fluxes of heat and momentum between oceans/lakes and the atmosphere, governing surface temperatures and mixed layer depths. Vertical exchange is driven by turbulent mixing. A way of measuring this is through the rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy. Turbulent energy dissipation is notoriously difficult to measure in the SBL ; most currently employed techniques involve ship borne surveys using free-falling microstructure profilers which is labour intensive, costly and can only be carried out for short surveys/cruises. Moreover the ships wake and instrument limitations mean that near surface measurements of dissipation are often contaminated. Recent work has been carried out as part of the NERC OSMOSIS project whereby two new techniques have been employed to sample the SBL ; the ADCP structure function technique and the Ocean Microstructure Glider. This work details observations and validation using these techniques, and the usage of results to investigate and parametrise the structure and evolution of the SBL .