The Dynamics of Mixed Layer Deepening during Open-Ocean Convection

Modeling Open-Ocean Deep Convection

We have developed non-hydrostatic, hydro-dynamical models exploiting parallel computational architectures and languages (see Marshall et al. [1997 a, b], Hill and Marshall [1996], Adcroft et al. [1997]) that are capable of explicitly resolving the convective scale in the ocean. The model has been used to study convection modified by rotation in idealized settings; these have led to much insight...

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...

Open-ocean Convection: Observations, Theory, and Models

We review what is known about the convective process in the open ocean, in which the properties of large volumes of water are changed by intermittent, deep-reaching convection, triggered by winter storms. Observational, laboratory, and modeling studies reveal a fascinating and complex interplay of convective and geostrophic scales, the large-scale circulation of the ocean, and the prevailing me...

Monitoring open-ocean deep convection from space

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...