Effect of small-scale topography on eddy dissipation in the Northern South China Sea

Yang, Zhibin, Jing, Zhao and Zhai, Xiaoming (2022) Effect of small-scale topography on eddy dissipation in the Northern South China Sea. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 52 (10). 2397–2416. ISSN 0022-3670

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Abstract

Mesoscale eddies are ubiquitous dynamical features, accounting for over 90% of the total kinetic energy of the ocean. However, the pathway for eddy energy dissipation has not been fully understood. Here we investigate the effect of small-scale topography on eddy dissipation in the northern South China Sea by comparing high-resolution ocean simulations with smooth and synthetically generated rough topography. The presence of rough topography is found to 1) significantly enhance viscous dissipation and instabilities within a few hundred meters above the rough bottom, especially in the slope region, and 2) change the relative importance of energy dissipation by bottom frictional drag and interior viscosity. The role of lee wave generation in eddy energy dissipation is investigated using a Lagrangian filter method. About one-third of the enhanced viscous energy dissipation in the rough topography experiment is associated with lee wave energy dissipation, with the remaining two-thirds explained by nonwave energy dissipation, at least partly as a result of the non-propagating form drag effect.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data availability statement: All the model configuration files and codes used for analyses are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Uncontrolled Keywords: eddies,instability,internal waves,oceanography ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1910
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Jun 2022 14:30
Last Modified: 24 Oct 2022 06:48
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/85569
DOI: 10.1175/JPO-D-21-0208.1

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