salt finger
noun Oceanography
One of several alternating columns of rising and descending water produced when a layer of water is overlain by a denser, saltier layer.Since the discovery of salt fingers by Stern in 1960, there has been much speculation about their role in oceanic mixing....
- The evolution of a salt finger from initial instability to a fully developed feature is difficult to follow in a fluid because of the close-packed array of cells that is formed.
Derivatives
salt fingering
- Salt fingering appears to be a viable mechanism for salt transport in the thawing layer (talik) above ice-bonded permafrost near the seabed in the Arctic.
- At last month's Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, physical oceanographers reported the first direct measurement of the power of "salt fingering," in which interweaving fingers of water flow up and down between distinct layers of seawater.