Small-scale processes in the ocean are crucial in shaping the oceanic general circulation, ocean’s energy cascade, and mixing and spawn interdisciplinary interactions. The internal waves and flow instability play an important role to draw energy from the large-scale flow to turbulence and is a major mechanism in the production of turbulent mixing in the ocean.

This course will review those important small-scale processes, including internal waves, instability waves and turbulence. Both the theoretical framework and observational results will be provided. The parameterization of those processes to large-scale modeling will be introduced as well.