Buoyancy transport induced by baroclinic turbulence

Baroclinic instability of zonal ocean currents like the Antarctic Circumpolar Current induces a turbulent flow that redistributes buoyancy across the current. The small scales of the turbulent flow are hardly resolved in global climate models, which calls for a physically-based parameterization of the turbulent transport. Based on a hierarchy of idealized models, I will report on a recent scaling theory for the magnitude of the meridional buoyancy flux, before discussing the three-dimensional structure of eddy-induced buoyancy transport. The theory leads to a quantitative parameterization providing the meridional temperature profile in terms of the large-scale external forcing in an idealized model of a zonal ocean current.