Hobart

Seminar Abstract

Friday 20 July 2012, 11.30am (Tas time)
CSIRO Auditorium, Hobart

Alex Babanin
Centre for Ocean Engineering
Science and Technology
Swinburne University
Melbourne

Wave Induced Turbulence Mixing in the Upper Ocean

Until recently, large-scale models did not explicitly take account of ocean surface waves which are a process of a much smaller scale both in space and time. It is, however, becoming obvious that waves mediate a great number of processes both in the atmospheric boundary layer and in the upper ocean. In addition, waves can potentially serve as a climate-change indicator themselves and, together with surface winds have shown increasing trends globally. In short, without accounting for the wave effects directly, the physics of large-scale air-sea interactions appears inaccurate and incomplete.

In the presentation, effects due to wave-induced mixing in the upper ocean, and climate feedback of this mixing will be discussed. The wave-induced mixing will be introduced through the turbulence produced by non-breaking waves. Laboratory and field observations of such turbulence, and its numerical simulations will be shown. Its implementation in large-scale models for ocean circulation and climate will be demonstrated.

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

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Last updated 24/08/12