This article assesses the contribution to ocean mixing by the marine biosphere at both high and low Reynolds numbers Re= uℓ/ ν. While back-of-the-envelope estimates have suggested that swimming marine organisms might generate as much high-Reynolds-number turbulence as deep-ocean tide- and wind-generated internal waves, and that turbulent dissipation rates of O(10-5 W kg-1) (Re ∼ 105) could be produced by aggregations of organisms ranging from O(0.01 m) krill to O(10 m) cetaceans, comparable to strong wind and buoyancy forcing near the surface, microstructure measurements do not find consistently elevated dissipation associated with diel vertically migrating krill. Elevated dissipation rates are associated with schools of O(0.1- 1 m) fish but with low mixing coefficients ( γ ∼ 0.002-0.02, as compared with γ ∼ 0.2 for geophysical turbulence). Likewise, viscously induced drift at low Reynolds numbers produces little mixing of temperature, solutes, dissolved nutrients, and gases when realistic swimmers and molecular scalar diffusion are taken into account. The conclusion is that, while the marine biosphere can generate turbulence, it contributes little ocean mixing compared with breaking internal gravity waves.

中文翻译：

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海洋中的生物混合。

本文评估了高雷诺数和低雷诺数Re =uℓ/ν时海洋生物圈对海洋混合的贡献。尽管根据现有的估计，游泳的海洋生物可能会产生与深海潮汐和风产生的内波一样多的高雷诺数湍流，并且湍流耗散率为O（10-5 W kg-1）（Re〜105）可能是由从O（0.01 m）磷虾到O（10 m）鲸类鲸类的生物聚集而产生的，与强风和浮力在地表附近产生的作用相当，微观结构的测量未发现一致地升高与diel垂直迁移的磷虾有关的耗散。较高的消散率与O（0.1-1 m）鱼群有关，但混合系数低（γ〜0.002-0.02，而地球物理湍流的γ〜0.2）。同样，当考虑实际游泳者和分子标量扩散时，低雷诺数下的粘性诱导漂移几乎不会产生温度，溶质，溶解的养分和气体的混合。结论是，虽然海洋生物圈可以产生湍流，但与破坏内部重力波相比，它对海洋的混合作用很小。