Internal-tide driven tracer transport across the continental slope

Spingys, Carl P., Williams, Richard G., Hopkins, Joanne E., Hall, Rob A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3665-6322, Green, J. A. Mattias and Sharples, Jonathan (2020) Internal-tide driven tracer transport across the continental slope. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125 (9). ISSN 2169-9275

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Abstract

The role of the internal tide in driving tracer transport across the continental slope is examined using simplified layered theory, channel model experiments, and observational diagnostics of near shelf-edge moorings. The effect of the internal tide is interpreted in terms of its Stokes' drift, which is separated into two distinct components: a bolus component, driven by the covariance of layer thickness and the velocity, and a shear component, driven by the velocity following the movement of an interface. For a three-layer ocean, in the model experiments and observations, the onshore propagation of an internal tide drives a Stokes' transport directed onshore in the surface and the bottom layers and directed offshore in the pycnocline. This reversing structure is due to the bolus component dominating near the boundaries, while the shear component dominates at the pycnocline. In the observational diagnostics, the Stokes' transport is not canceled by the Eulerian transport, which is mainly directed along bathymetric contours. The Stokes' drift of the internal tide then provides a systematic on shelf tracer transport if there is a tracer sink on the shelf, carried in the surface or bottom layers. Conversely, the tracer transport is directed offshore if there is a tracer source on the shelf with plumes of shelf tracer expected to be carried offshore along the pycnocline. This tracer transport as a result of the internal tide is diagnosed for heat, salt, and nitrate. The depth-integrated nitrate flux is directed onto the shelf supplying nutrients to the productive shelf seas.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	stokes' transport,exchange,internal tide,moorings,nitrate,shelf edge,geophysics,forestry,oceanography,aquatic science,ecology,water science and technology,soil science,geochemistry and petrology,earth-surface processes,atmospheric science,earth and planetary sciences (miscellaneous),space and planetary science,palaeontology ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1908
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Collaborative Centre for Sustainable Use of the Seas
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Sep 2020 23:58
Last Modified:	21 Dec 2022 02:32
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/76777
DOI:	10.1029/2019JC015530

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