U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Stirring and Mixing of Thermohaline Anomalies

这项为期三年的奖励为美法合作研究提供支持，以改进小尺度混合过程和中尺度涡旋的海洋环流模式。该项目涉及西北研究协会的玛丽-帕斯卡尔·勒隆和她的同事、帕特里斯·克莱因以及法国国家海洋研究所物理海洋学实验室的研究人员。研究人员将合作开发新的参数化，考虑到强烈热盐锋形成区域的小尺度信号和中尺度特征。这包括海洋中湍流漩涡和射流附近的区域。该项目利用了法国研究人员最近的结果，该结果表明，在中尺度上，热盐锋的形成与高环境位涡梯度之间存在高度相关性。美国研究人员为这一合作带来了理论和建模方面的专业知识。法国在湍流动力学方面的经验补充了这一点。这项合作将使美国调查人员能够将他们的理论结果扩展到实际的海洋环境中。

This three-year award provides support for US-France cooperative research on improving ocean circulation models of small-scale mixing processes and mesoscale eddies. The project involves Marie-Pascale Lelong and her colleagues at NorthWest Research Associates, Inc. and Patrice Klein and researchers at the Physical Oceanography Laboratory of IFREMER (the French National Institute for Research on the Sea). The investigators will collaborate on the development of new parameterizations that take into account the small-scale signal and mesoscale features of regions of intense thermohaline- front formation. This includes regions in the vicinity of turbulent eddies and jets in the ocean. The project takes advantage of recent results by the French investigators, which indicate a high correlation between thermohaline-front formation and high ambient potential vorticity gradients at the mesoscale. The US investigators bring to this collaboration expertise in theory and modeling. This is complemented by French experience in turbulence dynamics. The collaboration will allow US investigators to extend their theoretical results into an area of realistic oceanic conditions.