Map of the Rossby deformation radius of the mixing layer (in km) in the SCS and the distribution of InIRA data. Each imaging cell along the space station ground tracks represents the effective ...

These so-called submesoscale phenomena are now shown to play a vital part in transporting heat, nutrients, carbon, and energy within the ocean, reshaping our understanding of the ocean’s ...

These water fluxes result from many of the same forces, including winds and heat gradients, that create large currents like the Gulf Stream, but are far smaller and called submesoscale flows.

"The role that submesoscale features play in ocean dynamics is what makes them important," said Matthew Archer, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

With the help of highly resolved realistic model simulations physicists at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research (IOW) have succeeded in depicting the so-called submesoscale dynamics in ...