Fischer, Tim (2011) Diapycnal diffusivity and transport of matter in the open ocean estimated from underway acoustic profiling and microstructure profiling. (PhD/ Doctoral thesis), Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany, 105 pp.

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Abstract

Accompanying to a large scale tracer release experiment (GUTRE) at the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) off West Africa, microstructure measurements have been performed during two cruises to independently estimate diapycnal diffusion and fluxes of matter across the OMZ's upper limit. The vessel mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers have been used in this context to get underway estimates of finescale shear and allow to infer diapycnal diffusivity K indirectly. In this way the regional integral K for the depth range of OMZ upper half and tracer location (150m to 400m) has been determined to K = 1.2*10^{-5} +- 0.2*10^{-5} m^2/s. This is a slightly higher value than expected for these latitudes and probably is caused by bottom topographic influence. The influx of oxygen brought by zonal jets and then diapycnally transferred to the OMZ has been estimated as 1.7 +- 0.2 mmol/m^3/a and thus is deemed to resupply a substantial part of the oxygen consumption in the upper half of the OMZ.

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