Entrainment Rates and Eddy Exchange Coefficients from Reanalysis Sea Surface Salinity Data

Abstract

Simple analytic models developed in this study are applied to long-term averages of reanalysis surface salinity data to quantify two fundamental properties of ocean currents. The first model is based on the new Freshening Length schema and its application to the Irminger Current yields a ratio of about 5 between the turbulent entrainment rates of surrounding fresher surface waters west and east of Greenland. The second model is based on the steady solution of the advection-diffusion equation subject to suitable boundary conditions.