This three-year, $473,907 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences will support research into quantifying the exchange processes between the ocean surface boundary layer and interior at submesoscales. Submesoscale interactions between currents, waves, and turbulence can significantly impact biogeochemistry and climate through entrainment and subduction of tracers between layers.
The awardee, Brown University, will conduct numerical simulations and develop new diagnostic techniques to clarify the multiscale interactions and role in cross-scale exchange. Reynolds-averaged simulations will incorporate entrainment fluxes into a widely-used submesoscale mixed-layer instability parameterization to quantify impacts on Southern Ocean biogeochemistry models. Large-eddy simulations at 1m-10km scales will determine how submesoscale instabilities, Langmuir turbulence, and three-dimensional turbulence interact to modify tracer transport. Insights will advance exascale ocean modeling and climate-biogeosciences representations. Community models will integrate improved parameterizations. The simulations will be released for broader use. This work aligns with the NSF Geosciences program's support of integrated Earth system understanding through atmospheric, earth and ocean sciences basic research.