Wintertime Turbulence And Mixing On The Central Israel Shelf

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe turbulent mixing processes on the Israel Shelf in the winter season as well as the physical mechanisms driving the mixing events. Data for the study has been collected during two scientific cruises on board the R/V Shikmona and will be based mainly on vertical casts made with the state-of-the-art turbulence profilers. Ancillary data was provided from coastal meteorology stations and the reanalysis data from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) providing surface meteorological parameters from which surface forcing was estimated (surface wind stress and buoyancy fluxes). As far as we know, in this very region, no previous turbulence data has been collected and/or published in the open literature. The results indicate that in the winter of Israeli Shelf, the mixing event is mainly driven by buoyancy fluxes, the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy and Jb0 share a similar order of magnitude, around. This study can provide insight to the construction of turbulent models, and thus may further help the study in other oceanography fields.