Detailing secondary frontal bore of internal tides breaking above deep-ocean topography

• Published in: Journal of Oceanography
• Main Author: van Haren, H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://imis.nioz.nl/imis.php?module=ref&refid=368653

Above steep deep-ocean topography internal tidal waves may break vigorously. The associated turbulent mixing is important for resuspending matter, bringing it tens of meters away from the seafloor for redistribution. While intense turbulence generation occurs around a primary (frontal) bore during each transition from warming downslope to cooling upslope phase of the internal (tidal) carrier wave, a secondary bore can appear about half a wave-period later before the turn to the warming phase. As will be demonstrated from a 100-day mooring array consisting of 200 high-resolution temperature sensors between h = 6–404 m above a steep slope of a large North-Atlantic seamount and a low-resolution acoustic Doppler current profiler sampling between 50 and 450 m, secondary bores show about the same turbulence intensity as around primary bores but they generally show larger overturns that always reach the seafloor. The secondary bores associate with a sudden drop in along-isobath flow speed, a (renewed) increase in upslope flow of up to |0.2| m s −1 , and with first-harmonic quarter-diurnal periodicity which provides a spectral peak for turbulence dissipation rate. While each bore is different in appearance, varying from curved like a primary bore to almost straight upward with a ragged bore, secondary bores are in a first approximation forward breaking in contrast with backward breaking primary bores.