Ilmar Leimann

In­ter­nal Wave En­er­gy Dis­si­pa­ti­on and Wa­ven­um­ber Spec­tra: Ad­ap­ti­ve Sam­pling in the Oce­an In­te­ri­or

Oce­an mi­xing is an im­portant pro­cess for sustai­ning oce­an stra­ti­fi­ca­ti­on and cir­cu­la­ti­on. Brea­king of in­ter­nal wa­ves crea­tes con­di­ti­ons in which tur­bu­lent mi­xing is en­han­ced. Still, mi­xing is yet po­or­ly re­pre­sen­ted in oce­an mo­dels and nee­ds to be pa­ra­me­te­ri­zed, and the­se pa­ra­me­te­riza­t­i­ons (e.g. IDE­MIX) rely on the spec­tral pro­per­ties of in­ter­nal wave en­er­gy. Ob­ser­va­tio­nal data of in­ter­nal wave en­er­gy spec­tra and the dis­tri­bu­ti­on of mi­xing are, howe­ver, spar­se - par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the deep oce­an. My pro­ject aims to re­du­ce this gap, which is a small yet cru­ci­al step towards en­er­gy con­sis­tent cli­ma­te mo­de­ling.

Spe­ci­fi­cal­ly, I tar­get three main goals:
(i) Ob­ser­ving and de­scri­bing the in­ter­nal wave en­er­gy spec­trum in the in­te­ri­or oce­an (with a fo­cus on the Eas­tern South At­lan­tic),
(ii) char­ting and ana­ly­zing the spa­ti­al dis­tri­bu­ti­on of en­er­gy dis­si­pa­ti­on in the deep oce­an, also in re­fe­rence to (i), and
(iii) ex­plo­ring and co-de­ve­lo­ping new (ad­ap­ti­ve) tech­ni­ques to ob­tain mi­cro­struc­tu­re ob­ser­va­tions in the deep oce­an using au­to­no­mous ve­hi­cles.

The pro­ject is part of the Col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve Re­se­arch Cent­re 181 "En­er­gy Trans­fers in At­mo­s­phe­re and Oce­an" (TRR181). Learn more about the sub-pro­jects I'm in­vol­ved in here: W5 and here: L3.