FN Archimer Export Format
PT J
TI Improving the thermocline calculation over the global ocean
BT 
AF Romero, Emmanuel
   Tenorio-Fernandez, Leonardo
   Portela, Esther
   Montes-Aréchiga, Jorge
   Sánchez-Velasco, Laura
AS 1:1;2:2;3:3,4;4:5;5:1;
FF 1:;2:;3:;4:;5:;
C1 Instituto Politécnico Nacional–Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas (IPN-CICIMAR), Departamento de Oceanología, Av. IPN s/n, La Paz, B.C.S., 23096, México
   CONACyT-Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas (IPN-CICIMAR), Av. IPN s/n, La Paz, B.C.S, 23096, México
   Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia
   Univ. Brest, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, CNRS, IRD, Ifremer, Plouzané, France
   Universidad de Guadalajara, Departamento de Física, Gral. Marcelino García Barragán 1421, Olímpica, 44430 Guadalajara, Jal, México
C2 CICIMAR, MEXICO
   CONACYT, MEXICO
   UNIV TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA
   UBO, FRANCE
   UNIV GUADALAJARA, MEXICO
UM LOPS
IN WOS Cotutelle UMR
   DOAJ
   copubli-int-hors-europe
   copubli-sud
IF 3.2
TC 2
UR https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00791/90287/95811.pdf
   https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00791/90287/103547.pdf
   https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00791/90287/103548.pdf
   https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00791/90287/103549.pdf
LA English
DT Article
AB According to the typical thermal structure of the ocean, the water column can be divided into three layers: the mixing layer, the thermocline and the deep layer. In this study, we provide a new methodology, based on a function adjustment on the temperature profile, to locate the minimum and maximum depths of the thermocline, and therefore its thickness, to separate the water column into layers. We first validated our methodology by comparing the mixed layer depth obtained with the method proposed here with that of two previous studies. Since we found a very good agreement between the three methods we used the function adjustment to compute the monthly climatologies of the mixed layer depth, the maximum depth of the thermocline and the thermocline thickness, throughout the ocean. We also provide an assessment of the regions of the ocean where our adjustment is valid, and consequently the regions where the thermal structure of the ocean follows the three-layer structure. However, there are ocean regions where the water column cannot be separated into three layers due to the dynamic processes that alter it and the major contribution of salinity to stratification. This assessment highlights the limitations of the existing methods to accurately determine the mixed layer depth and the thermocline in oceanic regions that are particularly turbulent as the Southern Ocean and the northern North Atlantic, among others. The method proposed here has shown to be robust and easy to apply, and it can be used in both local and global studies. 
PY 2023
PD JUL
SO Ocean Science
SN 1812-0784
PU Copernicus GmbH
VL 19
IS 3
UT 001010341300001
BP 887
EP 901
DI 10.5194/os-19-887-2023
ID 90287
ER

EF