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| Titel |
Observations of a Downward Mixing of Rainfall with the ASIP Microstructure Profiler |
| VerfasserIn |
Kieran Walesby, Brian Ward, Jerome Vialard, Peter Minnett |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250108207
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-7949.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Rainfall can affect air-sea exchanges by stabilizing the upper ocean
and inducing a shallow mixed layer. The upper few metres of the ocean
can experience significant freshening from a single precipitation
event, before it eventually becomes mixed into the bulk waters,
typically after a period of hours. However, detailed observations of
the downward mixing of rainwater are scarce because of the very
shallow vertical scale over which it initially occurs.
Here we present observations from the Air-Sea Interaction Profiler
(ASIP), an autonomous upwardly-rising microstructure profiler capable
of resolving the small-scale variability within centimeters of the
air-sea interface. During this Indian Ocean deployment, an intense
rainfall event (peak rainfall rate >30 mm/hr) was captured by ASIP,
with a corresponding reduction in salinity and temperature in the
upper 10 m. This stabilising effect permitted the rainfall to remain
for the remainder of the 14-hour deployment. Estimates from SMOS and
ARGO observations have suggested a freshening rate on -0.14 psu/mm/hr,
but our results indicate that this is much less. |
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