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Dr Achim Wirth

PhD in Mathematics,
Under the supervision of
U. Frisch,
‘the Observatoire de Nice’, France Researcher at ‘CNRS’, ‘Modelling of large scale and mesoscale ocean flows’ Team, Grenoble

 
Ocean Deep Convection

Most of the world ocean is known to be in hydrostatic balance at large scales. However, ocean dynamics at scales smaller than about 10 km, convection, circulation in coastal areas, surface mixed layer dynamics, the breaking of internal waves and the dynamics of overflows in straits are instances of ocean dynamics where non-hydrostatic effects are essential.
These instances of non-hydrostatic ocean dynamics are important dynamical problems in their own right but they also influence the large-scale dynamics of the world ocean and the climate system of our planet.
A striking feature of open-ocean deep convection is that, although it governs a substantial part of the poleward heat transport of the atmosphere-ocean system, through its influence on the thermohaline circulation, it is nevertheless extremely localized in space and time.
In fact, convection chimneys account only for a tiny fraction of the world ocean and a convection event typically lasts for only about one week. A substantial part of the large-scale-long-time ocean and climate dynamics is thus slaved to what happens at these almost space-time singularities.
The entire deep ocean convection process is usually divided into three phases:
(i) preconditioning, (ii) deep convection (vertical exchange of water masses) and (iii) lateral exchange between the (homogenized) convection site and the ambient fluid.
The first and last process happen on scales of a few tens of kilometers to the order of a few hundreds of kilometers, and are usually well represented in hydrostatic models of ocean convection with sufficient resolution.
It is the second process, deep convection, that involves plumes of 100 meters to one kilometer in diameter, and which is intrinsically non hydrostatic. This process has thus to be parametrized in hydrostatic large-scale ocean models. It's spatial pattern consists of a convection chimney spanning several tens of kilometers in the horizontal direction.
The chimney itself is composed of plumes. These ``atoms of convection'' perform the actual (negative) buoyancy transport and mixing
20-21-22 November 09
SOUSSE - TUNISIA
Scientific Committee
Organizing Committee
ICCM3E Coordinator
 

J. ORFI, King Saud University, Riyadh - KSA
(Coordinator)

H. Al-ANSARI, King Saud University, Riyadh - KSA
K. ALHUMAIZI, King Saud University, Riyadh - KSA
A. AZZI, UST Oran - Algeria
A. BELGHITH, FS Tunis - Tunisia
B. BENHAMOU, FS Semlalia, Marrakech - Morocco
R. BENNACER, Université de Cergy Pontoise, France
S. BEN NASRALLAH, CRTEn - Tunisia
N. BEN SALAH, ESS Tunis - Tunisia
G. P. CELATA, ENEA - Italy
M. CHAMCHI, University of Massachusetts-Lowell - USA
G. DE VAHL DAVIS, University of New South Wales-  Australia
N. DJILALI, University of Victoria - Canada
E. DRIOLI, Institute of Membrane Technology-CNR - Italy
M. ELGANAOUI, Université de Limoge - France
N. GALANIS, Université de Sherbrooke - Canada
G. HABASHI, Mc Gill University - Canada
M. HASNAOUI, Semlalia, Marrakech - Morocco
A. JEMNI, ENI Monastir - Tunisia
M. KAVIANY, University of Michigan - USA
A. KOURTA, Université d'Orléans - France
H. LAATAR, FS Bizerte - Tunisia
T. LILI , FS Tunis - Tunisia
S. LORENTE, INSA Toulouse - France
A. MOHAMAD, University of Calgary - Canada
A. MOJTABI, IMF Toulouse - France
A. OMRI, FS Gafsa - Tunisia
P. OOSTHUIZEN, Queen’s University, Kingston - Canada
D. ROUSSE, Université du Québec - Canada
H. SADAT, Université de Poitiers - France
A. SAHIN, King Fahed University of Petroleum and Mineral - KSA
M. SASSI, Petroleum Institute - UAE
I. TEKE, Yildiz Technical University - Turkey
A. WIRTH, CNRS - France
 

S. EL ALIMI, ENI Monastir - Tunisia
(Coordinator)

J. ORFI, King Saud University, Riyadh - KSA
H. AGUIR, LESTE - Tunisia
H. MARMOUCHE, ISIMa - Tunisia
Y. BEN SALAH, Hokkaid University - Japan
S. CHEMKHI, CRTEn - Tunisia
F. REHIMI, ISTLS - Tunisia
R. GHEITH, LESTE - Tunisia

 
  S. EL ALIMI, PhD., ENIM - Tunisia
Email : contact@ICCM3E.net
Phone : + 216 98 45 20 98
Fax : +216 73 90 79 75
Adress : Souheil El ALIMI
Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Monastir
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TUNISIA