Characterization of turbulent regimes derived from high resolution CTD profiles. potential application to continuous profiling systems

Abstract

The present study proposes a new method for estimating mixing parameters from continuous CTD profiling data processing. The method is mainly oriented to the continuous profiling systems that can be installed in permanent observatories. The method could be particularly useful in studies of biologicalphysical interactions at small scale, because it overcomes some of the limitations of the eddy diffusivity concept when dealing with the complex vertical pattern of biological and chemical tracers. The proposed method obtains empirically the coefficients of the transilient matrix, this being the discrete descriptor used in non-local mixing closure.