Abstract
The results of modeling with the use of the QUODDY-4 three-dimensional finite-element hydrostatic model are given. They indicate that the averaged (over a tidal cycle) depth-integrated dissipation of the baroclinic tidal energy is the maximum in the southern parts of the sea and the minimum westward of Novaya Zemlya. It remains intact until the 40° E meridian, thus dividing the sea into the western and eastern parts. Westward of the meridian, the dissipation grows again. The field of the depth-averaged diapycnal diffusivity calculated by the Osborn formula resembles in many details the spatial distribution of the depth-integrated dissipation. Its maximum values fall on the Spitsbergen Bank and the entrance to the White and Pechora Seas; the minimum values determined by molecular kinematic diffusivity are grouped together in the northeast part of the sea as discrete spots. By comparing the found values of the diapycnal diffusivity with typical estimates of the background vertical eddy diffusivity, we ascertain that either they coincide among themselves by order of magnitude or the former values are more than the latter ones. This implies that the contribution of tides to the formation of the Barents Sea climate may be significant and even prevailing.
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Original Russian Text © B.A. Kagan, E.V. Sofina, 2015, published in Okeanologiya, 2015, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 26–31.
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Kagan, B.A., Sofina, E.V. The spatial variability of the baroclinic tidal energy dissipation and the associated diapycnal diffusion in the Barents Sea. Oceanology 55, 20–24 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001437015010075
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001437015010075