Entrainment, mixing and restratification at thermoclines and inversions

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Oceans and sufficiently deep lakes are stratified, meaning that their density increases with depth due to decreasing temperature and/or increasing salinity. The region about which the density increase is largest is called the thermocline, which effectively represents an interface separating the surface and abyssal waters. Likewise, an atmospheric inversion denotes a locally strongly stratified region in the atmosphere where the temperature rapidly increases with height. Stratified fluids generally inhibit vertical mixing. Thus, for example, atmospheric pollutants tend to be trapped below an inversion. However, energetic mixing and strong convective sources impinging upon density interfaces can result in the concentration and horizontal transport of pollutants which spread far from the initial disturbance. Understanding the evolution of these so-called intrusions is the focus of this proposal.