Fig. 4: Simulations investigating the influences of tidal flows and continental slope steepness on dense overflows.
From: Circum-Antarctic bottom water formation mediated by tides and topographic waves
a Isobath corresponding to the dense shelf water (DSW) tracer center of mass, as a function of along-slope distance downstream of the trough. The solid thick curves indicate the simulations without tidal forcing, while the dashed curves indicate the corresponding simulations that include tidal forcing. The semi-transparent red shading denotes the zonal range that we calculate the averaged DSW tracer-weighed isobath shown in (b). b Zonally averaged DSW tracer-weighted isobath for different experiments, with and without tidal forcing. c Probability density function of tracer as a function of potential density for experiments with three different slope inclines, with and without tidal forcing, computed over the area downstream of the semi-transparent red shading shown in (a). The gray vertical line indicates the maximum potential density in the simulation prior to DSW production. d Similar to (c), but for varying tidal forcing strengths with constant slope steepness (\(s=0.15\)).
