Flow and mixing near a glacier tongue: A pilot study

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Abstract

A glacier tongue floating in the coastal ocean presents a significant obstacle to the local flow and so influences oceanic mixing and transport processes. Here acoustic Doppler current profiler and shear microstructure observations very near to a glacier tongue side-wall capture flow accelerations and associated mixing. Flow speeds reached around 40 cm s-1, twice that of the ambient tidal flow amplitude, and generated vertical velocity shear squared as large as 10-5 s-2. During the time of maximum flow, turbulent energy dissipation rates reached 10-5 m2 s-3, around three decades greater than local background levels. This is in keeping with estimates of the gradient Richardson Number which dropped to ∼1 during maximum flow. Associated vertical diffusivities estimated from the shear microstructure results were substantial, reflecting the influence of the glacier on velocity gradients. © Author(s) 2011.

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Stevens, C. L., Stewart, C. L., Robinson, N. J., Williams, M. J. M., & Haskell, T. G. (2011). Flow and mixing near a glacier tongue: A pilot study. Ocean Science, 7(3), 293–304. https://doi.org/10.5194/os-7-293-2011

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