Diapycnal mixing in the Southern Ocean diagnosed using the DIMES tracer and realistic velocity fields

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. In this work, we use realistic isopycnal velocities with a 3-D eddy diffusivity to advect and diffuse a tracer in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, beginning in the Southeast Pacific and progressing t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Main Authors: Mackay, N, Ledwell, JR, Messias, MJ, Naveira Garabato, AC, Brearley, JA, Meijers, AJS, Jones, DC, Watson, AJ
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2018
Subjects:
Antarc*
Antarctic
Drake Passage
Southern Ocean
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10871/33203
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JC013536
Description
Summary:This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. In this work, we use realistic isopycnal velocities with a 3-D eddy diffusivity to advect and diffuse a tracer in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, beginning in the Southeast Pacific and progressing through Drake Passage. We prescribe a diapycnal diffusivity which takes one value in the SE Pacific west of 67°W and another value in Drake Passage east of that longitude, and optimize the diffusivities using a cost function to give a best fit to experimental data from the DIMES (Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean) tracer, released near the boundary between the Upper and Lower Circumpolar Deep Water. We find that diapycnal diffusivity is enhanced 20-fold in Drake Passage compared with the SE Pacific, consistent with previous estimates obtained using a simpler advection-diffusion model with constant, but different, zonal velocities east and west of 67°W. Our result shows that diapycnal mixing in the ACC plays a significant role in transferring buoyancy within the Meridional Overturning Circulation. We thank the UK Natural Environment Research Council (grants NE/F020252/1, NE/N018028/1, and NE/J007757/1) and the US National Science Foundation for funding the DIMES experiment (grants OCE 0622825 and OCE 1232962).

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