Ocean eddies are known to contribute significantly to vertical transport of material, heat, salt, and biogeochemical tracers from the surface to the interior. While dynamics at the mesoscale and the associated transport have been studied at great length, there is a lack of understanding of the transport by smaller-scale eddies. In this project, we use LES to simulate submesoscale fronts, eddies and filaments to investigate the roles of turbulence on the formation of coherent structures as well as the pathway of Lagrangian transport. Different sources of turbulence including surface wind and convection, Langmuir circulations and mixed-layer instabilities are characterized for their contribution to the vertical transport.

Publications:

1. Verma, V., H. T. Pham, and S. Sarkar, “Interaction between upper-ocean submesoscale currents and convective turbulence,” J. Phys. Oceanogr., 51, 2291-2302 (2021). 

2. Pham, H. T., V. Verma, S. Sarkar, A. Shcherbina, and E. A. D’Asaro, “Rapid downwelling of tracerparticles across the boundary layer and into the pycnocline at submesoscale ocean fronts,” Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL109674n (2024).