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Vertical
Mixing
Figure 10
shows the effect of vertical temperature
profile on mixing at different latitudes. In the tropics, shown in the
left graph, surface water is very warm and rides on top of much colder
water at depths below 200 m and prohibits vertical mixing. In polar
regions, by contrast, cool water formed at the surface has the ability to
mix to deep layers or even, with excess salt content, move to the ocean
floor and become part of the abyssal horizontal flow pattern. We will
return to this production of deep water in polar regions when we discuss
sea level rise in Block 2.
NEXT: Coastal Currents and Land Mass Interactions
