A time-varying temperature model of mixing in the English Channel

Abstract

The most comprehensive hydrographic work on the English Channel, even today, is that of Lumby (1935). Lumby used the surface observations of ships of opportunity (steamers on regular routes) that were gathered over a period of 25 years from 1903 to 1927. The number of observations gathered runs into tens of thousands and these were subdivided into convenient regions for the purpose of constructing an Atlas of sea surface temperature and salinity. The mean monthly values of temperature for each region from which the monthly contours were drawn can be considered as established to within ± 0.2 °C. Despite the fact that these data have been available for half a century no satisfactory explanation for these monthly temperature distributions has been offered. In this paper the role of horizontal turbulence in redistributing the net surface heating to produce these monthly temperature distributions is quantitatively examined.