Abstract
Abstract
Highlights
The transport of heat and salt across surfaces of constant density in the ocean provides a vital contribution to the closure of the ocean’s energy budget (Wunsch & Ferrari 2004; Hughes, Hogg & Griffiths 2009)
Winters et al (1995) show that the true rate of irreversible, diapycnal mixing in a Boussinesq fluid is equal to the conversion rate of available potential energy (APE) to background potential energy (BPE)
We focus on the dynamics of a single-component Boussinesq fluid with a linear equation of state, and refer the reader to Tailleux (2009, 2013a) for a discussion of mixing and APE in more complex scenarios
Summary
The transport of heat and salt across surfaces of constant density (isopycnals) in the ocean provides a vital contribution to the closure of the ocean’s energy budget (Wunsch & Ferrari 2004; Hughes, Hogg & Griffiths 2009). Quantifying mixing in computational fluid dynamics requires the use of direct numerical simulations (DNS) that resolve down to the dissipative scales of motion. These simulations can be used to test the assumptions used to derive the above models (as in Taylor et al 2019), or to quantify the differences in inferred diffusivity arising from the models (Salehipour & Peltier 2015). Riley, Metcalfe & Weissman (1981) were the first to include a mean density stratification in such a triply periodic set-up by decomposing the buoyancy field into a linear profile N02z and a periodic perturbation θ This system has since proved popular for studying the dynamics of high Re stratified turbulence
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