Effect of breaking waves on near-surface mixing in an ocean-wave coupling system under calm wind conditions

Abstract

Estimating wave effects on vertical mixing is a necessary step toward improving the accuracy and reliability of upper-ocean forecasts. In this study, we evaluate the wave effects on upper-ocean mixing in the northern East China Sea in summer by analyzing the results of comparative experiments: a stand-alone ocean model as a control run and two ocean-wave coupled models that include the effect of the breaking waves (BW) and of the wave-current interaction (WCI) with a vortex-force formalism. The comparison exhibits that under weak wind conditions, the BW effect prescribed by wave dissipation energy significantly enhances near-surface mixing because of increased downward turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), whereas the WCI has little effect on vertical mixing. Increased TKE results in a mixed-layer depth deepened by ~46% relative to the control run, which provides better agreement with the observed surface thermal structure. An additional experiment with local wind-based BW parameterization confirms the importance of nonlocally generated waves that propagated into the study area upon near-surface mixing. This suggests that under calm wind conditions, waves propagated over distances can largely affect surface vertical mixing; thus, ocean-wave coupling is capable of improving the surface thermal structure.