Spring Mixing: Turbulence and Internal Waves during Restratification on the New England Shelf

Abstract

Abstract Integrated observations are presented of water property evolution and turbulent microstructure during the spring restratification period of April and May 1997 on the New England continental shelf. Turbulence is shown to be related to surface mixed layer entrainment and shear from low-mode near-inertial internal waves. The largest turbulent diapycnal diffusivity and associated buoyancy fluxes were found at the bottom of an actively entraining and highly variable wind-driven surface mixed layer. Away from surface and bottom boundary layers, turbulence was systematically correlated with internal wave shear, though the nature of that relationship underwent a regime shift as the stratification strengthened. During the first week, while stratification was weak, the largest turbulent dissipation away from boundaries was coincident with shear from mode-1 near-inertial waves generated by passing storms. Wave-induced Richardson numbers well below 0.25 and density overturning scales of several meters were observed. Turbulent dissipation rates in the region of peak shear were consistent in magnitude with several dimensional scalings. The associated average diapycnal diffusivity exceeded 10−3 m2 s−1. As stratification tripled, Richardson numbers from low-mode internal waves were no longer critical, though turbulence was still consistently elevated in patches of wave shear. Kinematically, dissipation during this period was consistent with the turbulence parameterization proposed by MacKinnon and Gregg, based on a reinterpretation of wave–wave interaction theory. The observed growth of temperature gradients was, in turn, consistent with a simple one-dimensional model that vertically distributed surface heat fluxes commensurate with calculated turbulent diffusivities.