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    The influence of crosswind tidal currents on Langmuir circulation in a shallow ocean

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    2011JC006971.pdf (6.280Mb)
    Date
    2011-08-04
    Author
    Kukulka, Tobias  Concept link
    Plueddemann, Albert J.  Concept link
    Trowbridge, John H.  Concept link
    Sullivan, Peter P.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/4789
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JC006971
    DOI
    10.1029/2011JC006971
    Keyword
     Langmuir circulation; Boundary layer dynamics; Tides 
    Abstract
    Langmuir circulation (LC) is a turbulent process driven by wind and surface waves that plays a key role in transferring momentum, heat, and mass in the oceanic surface layer. On the coastal shelves the largest-scale LC span the whole water column and thus couple the surface and bottom boundary layers and enhance turbulent mixing. Observations and large eddy simulations (LES) of a shallow coastal ocean demonstrate that these relatively large scale Langmuir cells are strongly influenced by crosswind tidal currents. Two mechanisms by which crosswind tidal shear may distort and disrupt Langmuir cells are proposed. The first mechanism involves cell shearing due to differential advection across the whole cell. For the second mechanism, middepth vertical LC currents advect sheared mean crosswind current, leading to the attraction of upwelling and downwelling regions, so that LC cells are unsustainable when both regions overlap. Scaling arguments indicate that LC cells are more susceptible to crosswind shear distortion for smaller LC surface velocity convergence and greater cell aspect ratio (vertical to horizontal LC scale), which is consistent with the results obtained from the observations and LES. These results imply that scaling of LC characteristics in a coastal ocean differs from that in the open ocean, which has important practical implications for parameterizing enhanced mixing due to LC.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C08005, doi:10.1029/2011JC006971.
    Collections
    • Physical Oceanography (PO)
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C08005
     

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