Energy partition between submesoscale internal waves and quasi-geostrophic vortical motion in the pycnocline

Shipboard ADCP velocity and towed CTD chain density measurements from the eastern North Pacific pycnocline are used to segregate energy between linear internal waves (IW) and linear vortical motion (quasi-geostrophy, QG) in 2-D wavenumber space spanning submesoscale horizontal wavelengths λx ∼ 1 – 50 km and finescale vertical wavelengths λz ∼ 7 – 100 m. Helmholtz decomposition and a new Burger-number Bu decomposition yield similar results despite different methodologies. Partition between IW and QG total energies depends on 𝐵𝑢. For Bu < 0.01, available potential energy EP exceeds horizontal kinetic energy EK and is contributed mostly by QG. In contrast, energy is nearly equipartitioned between QG and IW for Bu » 1. For Bu < 2, EK is contributed mainly by IW, and EP by QG, while, for Bu > 2, contributions are reversed. Vertical shear variance is contributed primarily by near-inertial IW at small λz, implying negligible QG contribution to vertical shear instability. Conversely, both QG and IW at the smallest λx ∼ 1 km contribute large horizontal shear variance, such that both may lead to horizontal shear instability. Both QG and IW contribute to vortex-stretching at small vertical scales. For QG, the relative vorticity contribution to linear potential vorticity anomaly increases with decreasing horizontal and increasing vertical scales.