VERTICAL MIXING IN THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC ALONG 150-DEGREES-W IN MARCH 1988

A meridional transect along 150 degrees W in March 1988 revealed a sta tistically significant maximum in turbulent kinetic energy dissipation , epsilon, at 1 degrees S-0 degrees between 40-m and 60-m depth. The w ind stress and buoyancy flux were poorly correlated with the observed mixed layer dissipation measured below 10 m. Dissipation modeled using similarity scaling was larger than the observed mixed layer dissipati on (below 10 m) away from the equator and smaller than observed at 0 d egrees. The ratio of observed and modeled dissipation at the equator w as highly correlated to the vertical velocity shear at the base of the mixed layer. The turbulent stress divergence computed as the residual of annual mean terms between 0 and 60 m for the 4 1/2-day time series was close to the sum of the annual mean terms of the zonal momentum b alance of Bryden and Brady. For 2 1/2 days at 0 degrees the change in heat content of the top 15 m was consistent with the observed one-dime nsional fluxes within the uncertainty of the measurements. The 4-day a verage of penetrative irradiance out of the layer was twice as large a s that of the turbulent heat flux.