Temperature versus salinity gradients below the ocean mixed layer

The temperature-salinity relationship of the mixed layer

The surface mixed layer of the ocean is often characterized by density compensation between the horizontal temperature and salinity gradients. In this contribution we present a combination of theoretical arguments and numerical simulations to investigate how compensation might emerge as a result of processes at work within the mixed layer. The dynamics of the mixed layer are investigated throug...

Ocean Mixed Layer

The ocean mixed layer (OML), the ocean region adjacent to the air–sea interface, is typically tens of meters deep, and due to the fact that it is well mixed, the temperature and salinity (and therefore the density) are fairly uniform. The rapidly changing regions below these uniform regions of temperature, salinity, and density are called the thermocline, halocline, and pycnocline, respectively...

Methylmercury production below the mixed layer in the North Pacific Ocean

Mercury enters marine food webs in the form of microbially generated monomethylmercury. Microbial methylation of inorganic mercury, generating monomethylmercury, is widespread in low-oxygen coastal sediments. The degree to which microbes also methylate mercury in the open ocean has remained uncertain, however. Here, we present measurements of the stable isotopic composition of mercury in nine s...

Sea surface salinity variability from a simplified mixed layer model of the global ocean

Eddy-mixed layer interactions in the ocean

Numerical models have become essential tools in the study and prediction of natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate change. However the skill of such models in simulating the observed climate variability is still severely limited by (1) numerical approximations in the discretization of the hydrodynamical equations and (2) imperfect parameterizations of the myriad of atmospheric an...