Sir Charles Darwin, grandson of the famous evolutionary pioneer, was a physicist who suggested that swimming animals might contribute significantly to the mixing of water in the ocean. Here, observations of swimming jellyfish are used to create and validate a theoretical model for the relative contributions of Darwinian mixing and turbulent wake mixing. The contribution of living organisms to ocean mixing is found to be substantial — in the same order of magnitude as winds and tides.
- Kakani Katija
- John O. Dabiri
