Interaction between submesoscale flows and microscale turbulent mixing, and their impacts on nutrients supply near the Kuroshio Front

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A series of oceanographic field campaigns has been conducted to elucidate whether the Kuroshio Front is a site of enhanced microscale turbulent dissipation, and to investigate the impacts of submesoscale phenomena on watermass formations and nutrient supply. We found that the Kuroshio Front is the site of turbulent dissipation and mixing not only in the surface mixed layer front, but also in the thermocline under the Kuroshio main stream. The results from the numerical simulations of the Kuroshio with initial conditions taken from the observations suggest that the Kuroshio Front is also a major internal wave generator. The results of nutrient sample shows that the nutrient-rich Oyashio water can be penetrated into the nutrient-poor Kuroshio water, possibly fertilizing the Kuroshio by submesoscale subduction in the surface mixed layer front of the Kuroshio.