The term “mediator” is used here because the SI itself is not responsible for dissipation – its

length scales are orders of magnitude larger than the dissipation scale, and so it relies on even smaller-scale turbulence to transfer energy downscale to be dissipated. mTOR inhibitor Taylor and Ferrari (2009) showed that finite-amplitude SI develops secondary Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities along bands of enhanced shear, which then break down into smaller-scale turbulence. However, Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities are generally understood as 3D processes that are directly resolved in isotropic, very fine-scale simulations such as large-eddy simulations; aside from exceptional circumstances, they would not be resolvable in a regional model with a highly anisotropic grid. This introduces the related question of how and whether SI can restratify the mixed layer in a model

when its associated secondary instabilities are not present?. The objective of this paper is to investigate the level of spatial resolution necessary to explicitly resolve SI and to explore how the resolution threshold varies as a function of the mean flow parameters. The spatial scales at which models become SI-permitting are expected to also straddle the threshold between hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic flows; therefore, the resolution requirement is explored in both regimes. The discretization of the grid and the level of model viscosity can also Atezolizumab affect the stability of the flow to SI, and so these possibilities are explored as well. The main text that follows will be subdivided into two sections. The basic stability, selleck kinase inhibitor energetics, and growth of SI will be discussed in

Section 2. The differences between the growth of inviscid and viscously damped SI modes is shown, along with implications about what this may mean for the resolvability of SI in ocean models. Section 3 shows the results from a series of 2D simulations run at various resolutions, illustrating how the post-restratification character of the mixed layer can vary depending on the model viscosity and grid spacing. A summary of the main results and conclusions appears in Section 4. A detailed linear stability analysis of SI can be found in Appendix A. The surface ocean is marked by the presence of sharp lateral density gradients formed as a result of frontogenesis. The presence of these lateral gradients modifies the turbulence that arises at the surface due in part to buoyancy loss (Haine and Marshall, 1998) and down-front wind stress (Thomas and Taylor, 2010), and introduces a variety of secondary effects that modulate buoyancy transport through the mixed layer (Thomas and Lee, 2005). SI can be viewed as a hybrid of convective and inertial instabilities (Haine and Marshall, 1998). Since it is characterized by slantwise motions tilting across the lateral buoyancy gradient, SI is sometimes called “slantwise convection” (Emanuel, 1994).