The bottom-intensification of mixing causes large, almost cancelling, abyssal upwelling and downwelling

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• Trevor McDougall, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales
• Monday 03 July 2017, 14:00-15:00
• British Antarctic Survey, Innovation Centre, Conference Theatre.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Peter Davis.

If external to BAS, please email Dr Andrew Meijers (andmei@bas.ac.uk) in advance to gain access to the building

The bottom-intensification of diapycnal mixing in the abyssal ocean is studied using a simple buoyancy budget, showing that the interior of the ocean exhibits strong diapycnal downwelling, while there is strong dianeutral upwelling in very thin continental bottom boundary layers. For a given amount of Antarctic Bottom Water which is upwelled through neutral density surfaces in the abyssal ocean (between 2000m and 5000m) up to five times this volume flux is upwelled in narrow turbulent sloping bottom boundary layers, while up to four times the net upward volume transport of Bottom Water flows downward across isopycnals in the near-boundary stratified ocean interior. We conclude that the Stommel-Arons circulation of the abyssal ocean bears little relation to reality.

The second part of the talk will discuss the melting and re-freezing under ice shelves, demonstrating the application of TEOS -10 to this region of the ocean/ice.

This talk is part of the British Antarctic Survey - Polar Oceans seminar series series.

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