Coastal mixing and transport

理解海洋中的小尺度混合是至关重要的。它通过水柱输送热量、营养物质和污染物，影响气候、生物生产力和我们沿海生态系统的健康。它还驱动河口环流、海岸上升流，甚至全球颠覆环流。尽管它作用的范围很小，混合在各个尺度上都会影响海洋环流。他说，这里提出的工作将对小尺度现象进行测量，以了解和预测海洋中的混合。我们将把重点放在仍在发现新的混合机制且仍未包括在数值模式中的沿海水域。*我们在这项提议中确定了四个极具主题意义的领域：-湍流在决定大陆架上属性的循环和运输中的作用；-水如何从表面混合层输送到正下方的水；-关闭骑士海湾的潮汐能量收支，并了解能量如何产生混合；-了解阿拉斯加湾海达涡旋的产生和命运。我们小组将使用独特的仪器来研究这些过程。我们将使用微观仪器研究小尺度湍流，而用快速起伏的车辆观察更大尺度的强迫。现代通信使更长时间尺度的监测成为可能，通过剖面图浮标和自动滑翔机，所以我们将利用这些来收集混合的多季节统计数据。这些项目将涉及维多利亚大学、华盛顿大学海洋科学研究所、俄勒冈州立大学的科学家们的广泛合作。和斯克里普斯海洋研究所。他们还将为研究生和本科生提供广泛的机会参与前沿海洋学研究。

It is crucial to understand small-scale mixing in the ocean.  Mixing transports heat, nutrients, and contaminants through the water column, impacting the climate, biological productivity, and the health of our coastal ecosystems.  It also drives estuarine circulation, coastal upwelling, and even the global overturning circulation.  Despite acting on "small scales", mixing impacts the circulation of the ocean at all scales.       The work proposed here will make measurements of small-scale phenomena to understand and predict mixing in the ocean.  We will focus on coastal waters where new mixing mechanisms are still being discovered and still not included in numerical models.  We have identified four areas of great topical interest to concentrate on in this proposal: - the role of turbulence in determining the circulation and transport of properties on continental shelves; - how waters are transported from the surface mixing layer to the water directly beneath; - closing the tidal-energy budget in Knight Inlet, and understanding how the energy produces mixing; - understanding the generation and fate of Haida Eddies in the Gulf of Alaska.       Our group will use unique instrumentation to study these processes.  Small-scale turbulence will be investigated with microstructure instruments, while larger-scale forcing will be observed with a fast undulating vehicle.  Modern communications makes longer time-scale monitoring possible with profiling floats and autonomous gliders, so we will employ these to gather multi-season statistics of mixing.  These projects will involve extensive collaboration with scientists at University of Victoria, Institute of Ocean Sciences, University of Washington, Oregon State University, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  They will also provide extensive opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to participate in leading-edge oceanographic studies.