Microstructure observations and mixing parameterizations along an Atlantic transect in very weak turbulence

Kusters, Niek; Groeskamp, Sjoerd; Fernandez Castro, Bieito; van Haren, Hans

doi:10.5194/os-21-3397-2025

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-3397-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-3397-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

Research article

|

10 Dec 2025

Research article |

| 10 Dec 2025

Microstructure observations and mixing parameterizations along an Atlantic transect in very weak turbulence

Niek Kusters, Sjoerd Groeskamp, Bieito Fernandez Castro, and Hans van Haren

Data sets

Mixation - Microstructure data N. Kusters https://doi.org/10.25850/nioz/7b.b.vj

Nanoplastics 2 - Microstructure data N. Kusters https://doi.org/10.25850/nioz/7b.b.wj

Global tidal mixing maps Casimir de Lavergne https://doi.org/10.17882/73082

Groeskamp et al 2020 - mixing diffusivities Sjoerd Groeskamp https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12554555.v2

Model code and software

VENM Matlab code Sjoerd Groeskamp https://github.com/Sjoerdgr/VENM

Short summary

This study compares both microstructure shear and thermistor data, and finds very weak dissipations rates down to O(10⁻¹²) W kg⁻¹. The direct microstructure observations are compared to a finescale parameterization and Thorpe sorting method, for which we find good comparison. Insights into the relative roles between isoneutral and dianeutral mixing are obtained by using the triple decomposition framework.