Heterogeneous mixing processes observed in the Dotson Ice Shelf outflow, Antarctica

Dotto, Tiago S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0565-6941; Sheehan, Peter M. F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4906-5724; Zheng, Yixi ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3136-1311; Hall, Rob A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3665-6322; Damerell, Gillian M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5808-0822; Heywood, Karen J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9859-0026. 2025 Heterogeneous mixing processes observed in the Dotson Ice Shelf outflow, Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 130 (5). 10.1029/2024JC022051

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Text © 2025. The Author(s).This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. JGR Oceans - 2025 - Dotto - Heterogeneous Mixing Processes Observed in the Dotson Ice Shelf Outflow Antarctica.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (5MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

We present the first observations of ocean turbulent mixing rate in front of the Dotson Ice Shelf, where meltwater-enriched water leaves the cavity. The observations showed elevated turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rates ( ; ∼10−7 W kg−1) and turbulent diapycnal diffusivities ( ; ∼10−2 m2 s−1) near the seabed and in middepth layers, which are three orders of magnitude above background values away from the outflow. Elevated diapycnal fluxes of heat and salt were observed in regions of high mixing, moving vertically on average O ∼ 10 W m−2 and O ∼ 10−6 kg m−2 s−1, respectively, toward shallow depths. At middepth layers, the overturning instabilities are characterized by shear-driven symmetric and centrifugal instabilities. Our observations provide an understanding of mixing in front of fast-melting ice shelves and are key to developing better parameterizations and representations of mixing in climate models.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2024JC022051
ISSN:	2169-9275
Additional Keywords:	microstructure, instability, southern ocean, heat fluxes, ice shelf cavity
Date made live:	04 Jun 2025 22:07 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539532

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