DEEPER The impact of deep submesoscale processes on ocean circulation

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) controls the fluxes of heat and carbon in the ocean over long timescales. Dense waters sink into the abyss at high latitudes and are uplifted back to the surface. The conventional view has been that this upwelling of abyssal waters is driven by turbulent mixing associated with internal waves breaking within the ocean. But observations in recent years have contradicted this, showing that the deep branch of the AMOC is shaped by highly localised turbulent processes that generate mixing close to the bottom of the ocean.

The DEEPER project has two goals: the first is to quantify the impacts of deep-sea submesoscale processes on mixing and water mass transformations. The second is to explore ways of parameterising these impacts using the latest advances in machine learning. Simulations based on a numerical model will be used to characterise submesoscale processes and their interaction with the internal wave field in the deep ocean using a numerical model.