Hobart

Seminar Abstract

Friday 18 April 2008, 11.30am (Tas time)
CSIRO Auditorium, Hobart

Bernadette Sloyan
Marine Climate Changes & Variability Impacts Research Scientist
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

Subantarctic Mode and Antarctic Intermediate Water: the role of turbulent mixing in water mass formation

The Southern Ocean’s Antarctic Intermediate Water is a globally significant upper ocean water mass that circulates in all the southern hemisphere subtropical gyres, and is a key component of the interbasin circulation associated with the Indonesian Throughflow, and northward flow of upper ocean water in the Atlantic that balances the southward North Atlantic Deep Water transport. Antarctic Intermediate Water is formed near the Subantarctic Front predominantly in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. While air-sea fluxes, Ekman transport, cross-frontal and interior turbulent mixing are suggested to set the characteristic properties of Antarctic Intermediate Water, the relative importance of any one process on the formation of the water mass is still poorly understood.

During austral spring (2005) and summer (2006) hydrographic surveys in the southeast Pacific observed the formation of Antarctic Intermediate Water and subsequent restratification of the water column, respectively. We examine the vertical and spatial distribution of turbulent eddy diffusivity, estimated from density inversions in the CTD and XCTD profiles, to investigate the role of interior mixing on the formation of Subantarctic Mode Water and Antarctic Intermediate Water.

[back]

Location:
CSIRO = Marine Laboratories Auditorium, Castray Esplanade, Hobart

For further information, or to schedule a seminar, contact:
To schedule a seminar, contact:
Bernadette Sloyan, (Oceanographic seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5152
Thomas Kunz, (Biological seminars) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
(03) 6232 5076
Natalie Dowling, (Fisheries Modelling) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
(03) 6232 5148
Jillian Enraght-Moony, (seminar administrator) CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research (03) 6232 5320
Jess Tyler, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC (03) 6226 2265
Margaret Hazelwood, Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies (IASOS) University of Tasmania (03) 6226 2971

Last updated 4/04/08