Some of the most intense turbulence in the ocean occurs in hydraulic jumps formed in the lee of sills where flows are hydraulically controlled, usually by the first internal mode. Observations on the outer Texas-Louisiana continental shelf reveal hydraulic control of internal mode-2 lasting more than 3 h over a 20 m high ridge on the 100 m deep continental shelf. When control began the base of the weakly stratified surface layer bulged upward and downward, a signature of mode-2. As the westward flow producing control was lost, large-amplitude disturbances, initially resembling a bore in the weakly stratified layer, began propagating eastward. Average dissipation rates inferred from density inversions over the ridge were 10 28 and 10 27 W kg 21 , one to two decades above local background. Corresponding diapycnal diffusivities, K q , were 10 24 to 10 23 m 2 s 21 . Short-term mixing averages did not evolve systematically with hydraulic control, possibly owing to our inability to observe small overturns in strongly stratified water directly over the ridge.To test the feasibility of our interpretation of the observations, hydrostatic runs with a three-dimensional MITgcm simulated mode-2 control and intense mixing over the ridge below the interface. Details differed from observations, principally because we lacked three-dimensional density fields to initialize the model which was forced with currents observed by a bottom-mounted ADCP several kilometers east of the ridge. Consequently, the model did not capture all flow features around the bank. The principal conclusion is that hydraulic responses to higher modes can dominate flows around even modest bathymetric irregularities.
Background and IntroductionSome of the most intense mixing in the ocean occurs in hydraulic jumps downstream of sills lying across channels and straits. Internal modes are hydraulically controlled where their propagation speeds are slower than opposing currents. Control is lost downstream as the current slows and/or mode speeds increase with increases in channel width or depth. The transition from a high-energy to a low-energy state releases energy in the form of strong turbulence. Many cases prominent in the oceanographic literature are forced by M 2 barotropic tides and have controls lasting only a few hours of the tidal cycle [Farmer and Smith, 1980;Armi and Farmer, 1988;Wesson and Gregg, 1994;Ferron et al., 2003;Klymak and Gregg, 2004]. Hydraulic controls, however, also occur at subtidal frequencies. For instance, observations on the Oregon shelf found intense mixing when irregular flows produced mode-1 control atop 20 m high Stonewall Bank [Moum and Nash, 2000;Nash and Moum, 2001]. Controls have also been demonstrated in quasi-steady flows, such as the Bosphorus, where currents vary principally in response to changes in synoptic weather patterns [O guz et al., 1990;Gregg et al., 1999].The introduction to Pratt and Whitehead [2008] provide an extensive discussion of the range of hydraulic flows found in ocean and atmosphere. Much o...