WHOI PO

Abstract: Kinetic energy is an important metric of ocean circulation that encompasses mean currents, mesoscale and submesoscale stirring velocities, and smaller-scale processes such as internal wave motions. Kinetic energy in the Western Arctic Ocean is investigated for sea ice and in the upper 250 m using more than 12,000 velocity profiles obtained from Ice-Tethered Profiler with Velocity platforms that transit spatially through the ocean. In the vertical, kinetic energy is characterized by four distinct vertical structures associated with near-inertial motions, 7-30 km scales that are within a factor of 2 of the Rossby Radius, mesoscale motions at 30-480 km scales, and mean velocities at scales larger than 480 km. The fraction of kinetic energy at smaller scales is formally quantified, and the dependence on sea ice concentration is explored. This scale aware view of kinetic energy can be directly compared to numerical models at a range of horizontal resolutions, and has implications for circulation beneath an evolving sea ice cover.