Internal tide energy flux over a ridge measured by a co-located ocean glider and moored acoustic Doppler current profiler

Hall, Rob A.; Berx, Barbara; Damerell, Gillian M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1439-2019

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1439-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Developments in the science and history of tides (OS/ACP/HGSS/NPG/SE...

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1439-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

Research article

|

07 Nov 2019

Research article |

| 07 Nov 2019

Internal tide energy flux over a ridge measured by a co-located ocean glider and moored acoustic Doppler current profiler

Rob A. Hall, Barbara Berx, and Gillian M. Damerell

Data sets

MASSMO 4 project ocean glider and autonomous surface vehicle data, British Oceanographic Data Centre - Natural Environment Research Council R. B. Wynn, J. U. Wihsgott, M. R. Palmer, I. D. Lichtman, P. Miller, S. Goult, F. Nencioli, B. R. Loveday, S. Jones, M. E. Inall, E. Dumont, E. Venables, O. Jones, D. Risch, R. A. Hall, P. Cauchy, C. Pierpoint, J. Doran, and R. Mowat https://doi.org/10.5285/9373933d-48c1-5a37-e053-6c86abc0e213

Moored data from NWZ-E monitoring site in the Faroe-Shetland Channel B. Berx, J. Hindson, and H. Smith https://doi.org/10.7489/12217-1

Short summary

Internal tides are subsurface waves generated by tidal flows over ocean ridges. When they break they create turbulence that drives an upward flux of nutrients from the deep ocean to the nutrient-poor photic zone. Measuring internal tides is problematic because oceanographic moorings are often fished-out by commercial trawlers. We show that autonomous ocean gliders and acoustic Doppler current profilers can be used together to accurately measure the amount of energy carried by internal tides.