Grand Challenges in Ocean and Climate Modelling - STFC's ...

Internal Wave Mixing in the Deep Ocean
Internal waves are thought to
provide an important mixing mechanism
for stirring the deep ocean and upwelling
the deep waters to nearer the surface.
This is an important route whereby waters
which have left the surface can “overturn”
and once more return to the surface. The
mixing is therefore critical to maintaining the
large-scale circulation in the ocean.
The figure (from theory) shows that internal
tides and waves provide 0.9 TW of energy
to the deep ocean, nearly half of the total
required (the remainder being provided by
the wind).
From Munk & Wunsch (1998)