Mapping turbulent diffusivity associated with oceanic internal lee waves  offshore Costa Rica

Fortin, Will F. J.; Holbrook, W. Steven; Schmitt, Raymond W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-601-2016

Articles | Volume 12, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-601-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-12-601-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 12, issue 2

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

26 Apr 2016

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 26 Apr 2016

Mapping turbulent diffusivity associated with oceanic internal lee waves offshore Costa Rica

Will F. J. Fortin, W. Steven Holbrook, and Raymond W. Schmitt

Download

Final revised paper (published on 26 Apr 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Jul 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC C489: 'Skeptic about the "data transforms" method', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Aug 2015
- AC C1099: 'Response to Reviewer 1', Will Fortin, 04 Nov 2015
RC C538: 'Resolution enhancing method appears to be problematic.', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Aug 2015
- AC C1104: 'Response to Reviewer 2', Will Fortin, 04 Nov 2015

Short summary

Lee waves play a significant role in ocean mixing but are difficult to study with traditional casts, moorings, and tows due to their stationary nature and limited spatial extent. We develop a new method to estimate turbulent diffusivity from seismic data and find elevated levels of turbulence associated with lee waves in the mid-water and around the seafloor that are 5 times greater than surrounding waters and 50 times greater than open-ocean diffusivities.