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Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Physical Oceanography Année : 2021

Damping of climate-scale oceanic variability by mesoscale eddy turbulence

Résumé

The impact of mesoscale eddy turbulence on long-term, climatic variability in the ocean's buoyancy structure is investigated using observations from a mooring deployed in the Drake Passage, Southern Ocean. By applying the Temporal-Residual-Mean framework and characterizing the variance contributors and the buoyancy variance budget, we identify the main source and sink of long-term buoyancy variance. Long-term buoyancy variance amplitude is set by long-term vertical velocity fluctuations acting on the steady stratification. This baro-clinic buoyancy flux is also the main source of the variance, indicative of the effect of large-scale baroclinic instability. This source is balanced by a sink of long-term buoyancy variance associated with the vertical advection of the steady stratification by the eddy-induced circulation. We conclude that mesoscale eddy turbulence acts as a damping mechanism for long-term, climatic variability in the region of the observations, consistent with an ‘eddy saturated’ behaviour of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
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Dates et versions

hal-03004064 , version 1 (13-11-2020)

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Florian Sévellec, Alberto Naveira Garabato, Thierry Huck. Damping of climate-scale oceanic variability by mesoscale eddy turbulence. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 2021, 51 (2), pp.491-503. ⟨10.1175/JPO-D-20-0141.1⟩. ⟨hal-03004064⟩
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