Shelf/slope convection processes by densification of coastal surface waters after cooling, evaporation or freezing/brine rejection occur on many continental margins around the globe, inducing the formation of dense shelf water cascades and overflows.
Such extremely energetic oceanographic processes influence water mass mixing, deep ocean ventilation, benthic ecosystem functioning, continental margin shaping, etc., and have recently received a large amount of scientific interest. New multidisciplinary research initiatives are exploring the interconnections between physical (e.g., turbulent entrainment), geological (e.g., sediment erosion, transport and deposition), chemical (e.g., carbon exposure, turnover and burial), and biological processes (e.g., populations dynamics, ecosystem responses) associated with these phenomena.
Topics of special interest include innovative new techniques (such as those related to Seismic Oceanography or non-hydrostatic modeling) for expanding our observational or modeling capabilities to capture the fast temporal and short spatial scales important to these phenomena. The major aim will be to assess present-day knowledge of such oceanographic processes, giving the perspective of the next step on observations and numerical modelling. Presentations are welcome from both field studies and modeling efforts at all scales and disciplines, conducting research on dense water cascades and overflows at the shelf edge around the world. The session is cross-linked with OS16 “Ocean margins”, to which contributions about dense water cascades/overflows specifically devoted to shelf-ocean exchange and functioning processes should be addressed.