Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 29, no. 2 (2016): 214–221, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2016.53.
Description:
The Bay of Bengal (BoB), a semi-enclosed basin in the northern Indian Ocean, is a complex region with large freshwater inputs and strong vertical stratification that result in a shallow, spatially variable mixed layer. With the exception of shortwave insolation, the air-sea heat exchange occurs at the sea surface and is vertically redistributed by mixing and advection. Strongly stratified, shallow mixed layers inhibit vertical mixing, and the penetration of solar radiation through the base of the mixed layer can lead to redistribution of upper-ocean heat. This paper compiles observations of hyperspectral downwelling irradiance (Ed) from 67 profiles collected during six research cruises in the BoB that span a broad range of regions and seasons between 2009 and 2014. We report attenuation length scales computed using double and single exponential models and quantify the penetration of radiative flux below the mixed layer depth (Qpen). We then evaluate estimates of Qpen obtained from published chlorophyll-based models and compare them to our observations. We find that the largest penetrative heat flux (up to 40% of the incident Ed) occurs near 16°N where the mixed layers are shallow and the water is optically clear.
Description:
AAL acknowledges funding of the Ocean Mixing
and Monsoon (OMM) and SATellite Coastal and
Oceanographic REsearch (SATCORE) programs by
the Ministry of Earth Sciences, government of India.
MMO was supported by the Office of Naval Researchfunded
Coastal and Submesoscale Process Studies
for Air-Sea Interactions Regional Initiative (ASIRI) in
the Bay of Bengal.
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
