Mode-2 hydraulic control of flow over a small ridge on a continental shelf

Abstract

Some of the most intense turbulence in the ocean occurs in hydraulic jumps formed in the lee of sills where flows are hydraulically controlled, usually by the first internal mode. Observations on the outer Texas-Louisiana continental shelf reveal hydraulic control of internal mode-2 lasting more than 3 h over a 20 m high ridge on the 100 m deep continental shelf. When control began the base of the weakly stratified surface layer bulged upward and downward, a signature of mode-2. As the westward flow producing control was lost, large-amplitude disturbances, initially resembling a bore in the weakly stratified layer, began propagating eastward. Average dissipation rates inferred from density inversions over the ridge were 10−8 and 10−7W kg−1, one to two decades above local background. Corresponding diapycnal diffusivities, Kρ, were 10−4 to 10−3 m2 s−1. Short-term mixing averages did not evolve systematically with hydraulic control, possibly owing to our inability to observe small overturns in strongly stratified water directly over the ridge. To test the feasibility of our interpretation of the observations, hydrostatic runs with a three-dimensional MITgcm simulated mode-2 control and intense mixing over the ridge below the interface. Details differed from observations, principally because we lacked three-dimensional density fields to initialize the model which was forced with currents observed by a bottom-mounted ADCP several kilometers east of the ridge. Consequently, the model did not capture all flow features around the bank. The principal conclusion is that hydraulic responses to higher modes can dominate flows around even modest bathymetric irregularities.