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Estimating Salinity Variance Dissipation Rate from Conductivity Microstructure Measurements

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  • At the smallest length scales, conductivity measurements include a contribution from salinity fluctuations in the inertial–convective and viscous–diffusive ranges of the turbulent scalar variance spectrum. Interpreting these measurements is complicated because conductivity is a compound quantity of both temperature and salinity. Accurate estimates of the dissipation rate of salinity variance χₛ and temperature variance χₜ from conductivity gradient spectra Ψ𝒸𝓏(k) require an understanding of the temperature–salinity gradient cross spectrum Ψₛ𝓏ₜ𝓏 (k), which is bounded by |Ψₛ𝓏ₜ𝓏| ≤ √Ψₛ𝓏Ψₜ𝓏. Highly resolved conductivity measurements were made using a four-point conductivity probe mounted on the loosely tethered vertical profiler Chameleon during cruises in 1991 and 1992. Thirty-eight turbulent patches were selected for homogeneity in shear, temperature gradient, and salinity gradient fluctuations and for clear relationship between temperature and salinity. Estimates of χₜ and χₛ from the conductivity probe are found to agree with independent estimators from a conventional thermistor probe.
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  • Nash, Jonathan D., James N. Moum, 1999: Estimating Salinity Variance Dissipation Rate from Conductivity Microstructure Measurements. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 16, 263–274.
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  • 16
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  • 2
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  • This work was funded by the Office of Naval Research (N0014-96-1-0250) and the National Science Foundation (OCE-9417018).
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