Measurements of Turbulence in the Zone of Strong Bottom Currents in the Strait of Denmark

摘要

A need for experimental data about the entrain-ment of waters from the Irminger Sea into the jet of cooler and denser waters from the Arctic Basin participating in the formation of deep waters of the North Atlantic became pressing in relation to the research into climatically important meridional water circulation in the North Atlantic within the International EU frame project "Thermohaline Overflow-at Risk?" (THOR). Turbulence near the interface of the intrusion and surrounding waters plays an important role in the entrainment. However, to the present, there has been little success in direct instrumental measurements of the microstructure at large depths. The solution of this problem required development of a free-falling microstructure profiler (MP) that makes possible operative measurements of turbulent pulsations of hydrophysical fields at depths up to 3500 m. Such a profiler was made at the Atlantic Branch of the Institute of Oceanology with the support of THOR partners from Hamburg University and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.