Turbulence in the presence of internal waves in the bottom boundary layer of the California inner shelf

Abstract

Turbulence measurements were collected in the bottom boundary layer of the California inner shelf near Point Sal, CA, for 2 months during summer 2015. The water column at Point Sal is stratified by temperature, and internal bores propagate through the region regularly. We collected velocity, temperature, and turbulence data on the inner shelf at a 30-m deep site. We estimated the turbulent shear production (P), turbulent dissipation rate (e), and vertical diffusive transport (T), to investigate the near-bed local turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budget. We observed that the local TKE budget showed an approximate balance (P ≈ e) during the observational period, and that buoyancy generally did not affect the TKE balance. On a finer resolution timescale, we explored the balance between dissipation and models for production and observed that internal waves did not affect the balance in TKE at this depth.