Best Practices for Comparing Ocean Turbulence Measurements across Spatiotemporal Scales.
Abstract
The turbulent energy dissipation rate in the ocean can be measured by using rapidly sampling microstructure
shear probes, or by applying a finescale parameterization to coarser-resolution density and/or shear profiles. The two
techniques require measurements that are on different spatiotemporal scales and generate dissipation rate estimates that
also differ in spatiotemporal scale. Since the distribution of the measured energy dissipation rate is closer to lognormal than
normal and fluctuates with the strength of the turbulence, averaging the two approaches on equivalent spatiotemporal scales
is critical for accurately comparing the two methods. Here, microstructure data from the 1997 Brazil Basin Tracer Release
Experiment (BBTRE) is used to demonstrate that comparing averages of the dissipation rate on different spatiotemporal
scales can generate spurious discrepancies of up to a factor of order 10 in regions of strong turbulence and smaller biases
of up to a factor of 2 in th.....
Journal
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic TechnologyVolume
38Page Range
pp.837–841Document Language
enSustainable Development Goals (SDG)
14.aMaturity Level
MatureDOI Original
https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0175.1Citation
Whalen, C.B. (2021) Best Practices for Comparing Ocean Turbulence Measurements across Spatiotemporal Scales. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology ,38, pp.837–841. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0175.1Collections
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