Physical mechanism and numerical simulations of surface layer temperature inversion in tropical ocean

1 Introduction Ocean upper mixed layer, with nearly uniform temperature, salinity and density, is formed by sea sur- face forces such as wind stress, buoyancy flux and sur- face waves, etc. Under the mixed layer, thermocline and halocline often exist. Usually the depth of them is almost equal. But in the tropical ocean, the halocline is often shallower than the thermocline. Then between the layer of uniform salinity and the thermocline, there is a layer which has a rather strong density gradi…

Physical mechanism and numerical simulations of surface layer temperature inversion in tropical ocean

The one-dimensional Kraus-Tumer mixed layer model improved by Liu is developed to consider the effect of salinity and the equations of temperature and salinity under the mixed layer. On this basis, the processes of growth and death of surface layer temperature inversion is numerically simulated under different environmental parameters. At the same time, the physical mechanism is preliminarily discussed combining the observations at the station of TOGA-COARE 0°N, 156°E. The results indicate that temperature inversion sensitively depends on the mixed layer depth, sea surface wind speed and solar shortwave radiation, etc., and appropriately meteorological and hydrological conditions often lead to the similarly periodical occurrence of this inversion phenomenon.