Long nonlinear internal waves

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2006-01
Authors
Helfrich, Karl R.
Melville, W. Kendall
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10.1146/annurev.fluid.38.050304.092129
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Solitary waves
Nonlinear waves
Stratified flow
Physical Oceanography
Abstract
Over the past four decades, the combination of in situ and remote sensing observations has demonstrated that long nonlinear internal solitary-like waves are ubiquitous features of coastal oceans. The following provides an overview of the properties of steady internal solitary waves and the transient processes of wave generation and evolution, primarily from the point of view of weakly nonlinear theory, of which the Korteweg-de Vries equation is the most frequently used example. However, the oceanographically important processes of wave instability and breaking, generally inaccessible with these models, are also discussed. Furthermore, observations often show strongly nonlinear waves whose properties can only be explained with fully nonlinear models.
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Author Posting. © Annual Reviews, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of Annual Reviews for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 38 (2006): 395-425, doi:10.1146/annurev.fluid.38.050304.092129.
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Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 38 (2006): 395-425
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