Characteristics of Internal Tides Modulated inside a Mesoscale Warm Eddy
1 based on Single Virtual-moored Slocum Glider observations
Abstract
6 Key Points 7 • Variability of diurnal and semidiurnal internal tides
within a mesoscale warm eddy is 8 detected via virtual-moored
single-glider observations. 9 • Diurnal internal tides’ vertical
structure changes noticeably for vertical displacement and 10 available
potential energy when moving away from the eddy center. 11 • The
vertical structure of diurnal internal tides within a mesoscale eddy
varies with Abstract 15 Internal waves are ubiquitous ocean features
that significantly contribute to diapycnal mixing, 16 and their
modulation by mesoscale eddies is crucial to understanding their
propagation and 17 dissipation. From an experiment as a pilot program of
the Slocum glider for virtual-moored 18 profiling in a mesoscale eddy, a
unique conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) dataset was 19 obtained and
used in this study for examining modulated internal waves within the
eddy center. 20 Internal tide variability is detected within the eddy,
where diurnal internal tides (DITs) 21 overwhelm other frequency
internal waves. DITs’ vertical structures change dramatically for 22
vertical displacements and available potential energy (APE), depending
on horizontal positions 23 near the eddy center. The observed behavior
of DITs’ low vertical wavenumbers indicates a 24 cascade of energy from
low to high modes, likely due to the hierarchy of wave-eddy
interactions. 25 Especially, distinct behavior near the eddy’s inner and
outer centers indicate different interaction 26 strengths on each
regime. 27 Plain Language Summary 28 In this work, actively targeted CTD
measurements within a mesoscale eddy were conducted 29 using a single
Slocum glider. First, the virtual-mooring mode of a glider was
successfully 30 controlled within a 720 m root-mean-square (RMS) around
the waypoint and yielded a reliable 31 dataset to capture the internal
tide variations. Second, based on the gridded version of raw data in 32
a 1 h and 1 m vertical resolution, diurnal and semidiurnal internal
tides are observed in the 33 bandpassed time-depth isothermal
displacement maps. Third, the vertical structure of vertical 34
isothermal displacements, as well as the vertical distribution of
available potential energies, 35 shows a varying pattern depending on
horizontal positions near the eddy center. It is more 36 variable in the
inner center and less variable in the outer center. Lastly, there
appears a weak clue 37 of energy-cascading behavior from low to higher
modes for spectral behavior of low vertical 38 manuscript submitted to
Geophysical Research Letters wavenumbers computed during the
observation, indicating that the nonlinear interactions among 39 the
waves and the eddy have different strengths in the inner and outer
centers: strong in the inner 40 center and weak in the outer center. 41