The intermittency of large-scale ocean mixing

Mixing (of e.g. heat, oxygen or nutrients) is a crucial component of our climate system. It is well known that mixing occurs on many different scales, but its temporal characteristics have yet to be well observed and modelled. New preliminary data suggests large intermittency of mixing processes in the ocean, which may lead to entirely new insights. In this project, we will be combining both existing and new mooring-based observations with results from eddy-permitting models to study the intermittency of mixing in the ocean. This should lead to a significant improvement on how mixing is currently represented in most models.

		With our joint research, we improve a fundamental building block for quantifying and predicting a wide range of physical and biogeochemical processes in the ocean.
		Michiel Baatsen, Sjoerd Groeskamp