Effects of Symmetric Instability on Potential Vorticity Budget in the Kuroshio Extension Region via a Parameterization Scheme

Abstract As one kind of submesoscale instabilities, symmetric instability (SI) with spatiotemporal scales of O (100) m– O (1) km and O (1) hour exerts significant effects on vertical material transports and forward energy cascade in the ocean. The potential vorticity (PV) is an important conservative parameter controlling quasi‐geostrophic flows, whose budget can be modulated by SI. However, due to the small spatial scale of SI which is hardly resolved by most current observations and regional models, how SI affects the PV budget and how big the effect is remain unclear. In this work, the effect of SI on the PV budget in the surface mixed layer (SML) of the Kuroshio Extension region is quantitatively analyzed based on high‐resolution simulations by applying an existing SI parameterization scheme. Compared with the case without SI effects, negative PV is found to be eliminated in the SML in the SI‐parameterized case. The negative‐PV likelihood in the SI‐parameterized case is decreased by up to 12% due to SI. Analysis of the PV budget indicates that SI contributes to the PV budget mainly by modulating the friction term. The friction term tends to generate negative PV but its magnitude is decreased by 35% due to SI. Apart from the frictional term, both advection and non‐adiabatic terms are also found to be modulated by SI. This work sheds light on the contribution of SI in the PV budget in the ocean mixed layer and suggests a significant role of SI in quasi‐geostrophic PV dynamics.