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MTS-Sponsored Seminar: Spice, Stratification and Sound: Observations of Fine-Scale Upper Ocean Variability
This seminar is sponsored by our Marine Technology Society Student Section!
Alejandra “Ale” Sanchez-rios
Assistant Professor in the Department of Oceanography, SOEST
*In-person ONLY (POST 723)*
*request Zoom Link here for extenuating circumstances by Wednesday (3/25) @ 11:59 pm HST
Temperature and salinity (T–S) can vary strongly along density surfaces in the upper ocean, a quantity known as spice, without directly modifying stratification. This density-compensated variability does not directly drive dynamics, yet plays an important role in water mass characterization, tracer transport, and the evolution of upper-ocean structure. In regions influenced by fronts, river discharge, or strong surface forcing, spice produces temperature inversions and shifting stratification regimes with important consequences for tracer distribution and diapycnal mixing. Spice variability also has important implications for sound propagation. In this seminar, I use spice as a diagnostic tool to examine along-isopycnal T–S variability in a frontal region where the background water mass structure supports large, density-compensated gradients. A key part of this work relies on microstructure profilers and fast towed CTD profiles, allowing direct observation of turbulent dissipation and fine-scale stratification features. Together, these observations shed light on how spice shapes diapycnal mixing and water mass transformation, and how that same variability propagates into sound-speed structure in a dynamically evolving upper ocean.