cabbeling

English

WOTD – 7 April 2016

A visualization of cabbeling in a sample temperature–salinity diagram. Combining water masses A and B in equal proportions forms water mass C, which has a higher density than either A or B.

Alternative forms

• caballing
• cabbelling (British)

Etymology

From German Kabbelung; according to Foster (1972), the German word was first applied to the phenomenon by Witte (1902), and subsequently used in an anglicized form by Stommel (1960) and others.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈbɛlɪŋ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlɪŋ
• Hyphenation: cab‧bel‧ing

Noun

cabbeling (uncountable)

1. (oceanography) The process by which two masses of water with different temperatures and salinities mix to form a new water mass with a density higher than the density of either parent water mass; also, the sinking of the new water mass as the effect of its increased density.
   • 1934, Thomas North Whitehead, The Design and Use of Instruments and Accurate Mechanisms: Underlying Principles, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Co., →OCLC, page 684:

     He reasoned that cabbeling would form a front at the juxtaposition of Warm Deep Water and Shelf Water. Sinking along such a front would thus inhibit the cross shelf flow of shelf water.

   • 1982, G. T. Csanady, Circulation in the Coastal Ocean (Environmental Fluid Mechanics; 2), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, →ISBN, page 212:

     To complete this catalog of thermodynamic processes of importance in shallow seas, the phenomenon of cabbeling should be mentioned (from the German ‘Kabbelung’, see Horne et al. (1978), usually pronoun[c]ed in English with the emphasis on the second syllable). Because the equation of state of water is nonlinear, the density of a mixture of two water masses of unequal temperature (and possibly salinity) is greater than the arithmetic average density of the two components. Thus surface mixing of adjacent water masses of differing characteristics generally produces water locally denser than its surroundings, which tends to sink. Sinking motion so generated is referred to as ‘cabbeling’.

   • 1994, Chris Garrett, “The Mediterranean Sea as a Climate Test Basin”, in Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli, Allan R. Robinson, editors, Ocean Processes in Climate Dynamics: Global and Mediterranean Examples (Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences; 419), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, →ISBN, page 233:

     This effect is presumably compensated for by cabbelling, or densification on mixing, below the surface, but would be interesting to examine in a numerical model.

   • 2010, Rui Xin Huang, Ocean Circulation: Wind-Driven and Thermohaline Processes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 100:

     When two water parcels with the same mass but different temperature and salinity mix together, the newly generated water parcel may have a density greater than the mean density of the original water parcels. In particular, if the original water parcels have the same density, then the newly formed water parcel may have a density greater than the mean density of the original parcels. As a result, the newly formed water parcel will sink. This process, called cabbeling in oceanography, is due to the nonlinearity of the equation of state of seawater, especially the increase of the thermal expansion coefficient with temperature.

Further reading

• “cabbeling”, in Meteorology Glossary‎^[1], American Meteorological Society, 2012 January 26, archived from the original on 12 October 2015.