Submesoscales are a significant turbulence source in global ocean surface boundary layer

The turbulent ocean surface boundary layer is a key part of the climate system affecting both the energy and carbon cycles. Accurately simulating the boundary layer is critical in improving climate model performance, which deeply relies on our understanding of the turbulence in the boundary layer. Turbulent energy sources in the boundary layer are traditionally believed to be dominated by waves, winds and convection. Recently, submesoscale phenomena with spatial scales of 0.1–10 km at ocean fronts have been shown to also make a contribution. Here, by applying a non-dimensional turbulent kinetic energy budget equation, we show that the submesoscale geostrophic shear production at fronts is a significant turbulent energy source within the ocean boundary layer away from the sea surface. The contribution reaches 34% of the total dissipation in winter and 17% in summer at the mid-depth of the boundary layer, despite its intermittency in space and time. This work indicates fundamental deficiencies in previous conceptions of ocean boundary layer turbulence, and invites a reappraisal of the sampling scale in observations, model resolution and parameterizations, and other consequences of the global energy budget.

Jihai Dong, Baylor Fox-Kemper, Jacob O. Wenegrat, Abigail S. Bodner, Xiaolong Yu, Stephen Belcher, Changming Dong