Meridional circulation and mixing associated with the decay of warm-core ring 82B
Abstract
Observations of a warm-core ring are used to formulate a model for diagnosing the physics of a ring change over a 2-month period. About 30 hydrographic casts and acoustic doppler current measurements are used to generate estimates of an equivalent radially symmetric ring with radial contrasts of stratification, temperature, salinity, azimuthal velocity, angular momentum and potential vorticity. A series of related models is inverted for the ring circulation and mixing coefficients. The circulation is insensitive to the model details, is well resolved, and is a radial outflow and upwelling. Eddy coefficients are only partially resolved; determining the mixing with any degree of confidence appears to require a much more elaborate data set than the one available.
- Publication:
-
Deep Sea Research A
- Pub Date:
- March 1992
- DOI:
- 10.1016/S0198-0149(11)80004-X
- Bibcode:
- 1992DSRA...39S..45F