Striped texture of submesoscale fields in the northeastern Baltic Proper: Results of very high-resolution modelling for summer season

Abstract

Very high-resolution modelling of the northeastern Baltic Proper shows that preferentially elongated along the flow, submesoscale inhomogeneities of hydrodynamic fields or stripes of the order of 10–20 km in length and 1 km in width, are typical for summer season both in surface mixed layer and for interior layers which are not directly exposed to atmospheric forcing. In surface layer, the presence of stripes is supported by the remote sensing imagery and their vertical extension is comparable with the mixed layer depth (approx. 5–8 m). In the interior layers, the vertical extension of stripes is considerably larger (approx. 10–50 m) and their slopes exceed the isopycnal slope. Four competitive mechanisms of formation of the mesoscale striped texture are considered: stirring of large-scale inhomogeneities by the eddy field, the classic, inviscid adiabatic fluid symmetric instability, the McIntyre instability, and the strain-induced frontogenesis. Based on the instability criteria and the growth rates and geometry of the disturbances, the classic symmetric instability and the strain-induced frontogenesis are probably responsible for the formation of submesoscale striped texture in the surface layer, while in the interior layers, the strain-induced frontogenesis and hypothetically the McIntyre instability can be essential. Stirring of large-scale inhomogeneities by the eddy field could be responsible for formation of striped texture in a passive tracer concentration and in temperature and salinity in the presence of thermohaline gradients on isopycnic surfaces (thermoclinicity), but it does not imply formation of stripes in dynamically active tracers, such as vertical vorticity, horizontal gradients of buoyancy, etc.