What Controls Shear Instabilities at Tropical Wave Fronts?

In this video, Mia Sophie Specht presents her research on tropical instability waves in the Atlantic Ocean and the vertical shear instabilities that develop at their fronts. Using a 12-year high-resolution ocean model simulation, she examines when and where deep reaching mixing occurs. Her findings show that this mixing is strongly seasonal, limited to boreal summer, and arises from the interaction between wave-driven shear and the background equatorial current system. The work underscores the need for long-term, high-resolution analyses to better understand how small-scale ocean processes shape climate-relevant dynamics.