• Login
    About WHOAS
    View Item 
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    • View Item
    •   WHOAS Home
    • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of WHOASCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywordsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesKeywords

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Generation of internal solitary waves by lateral circulation in a stratified estuary

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    jpo-d-16-0240.1.pdf (925.6Kb)
    Date
    2017-07-03
    Author
    Xie, Xiaohui  Concept link
    Li, Ming  Concept link
    Scully, Malcolm E.  Concept link
    Boicourt, William C.  Concept link
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/9142
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-16-0240.1
    DOI
    10.1175/JPO-D-16-0240.1
    Keyword
     Estuaries; Internal waves; Solitary waves 
    Abstract
    Internal solitary waves are commonly observed in the coastal ocean where they are known to contribute to mass transport and turbulent mixing. While these waves are often generated by cross-isobath barotropic tidal currents, novel observations are presented suggesting that internal solitary waves result from along-isobath tidal flows over channel-shoal bathymetry. Mooring and ship-based velocity, temperature, and salinity data were collected over a cross-channel section in a stratified estuary. The data show that Ekman forcing on along-channel tidal currents drives lateral circulation, which interacts with the stratified water over the deep channel to generate a supercritical mode-2 internal lee wave. This lee wave propagates onto the shallow shoal and evolves into a group of internal solitary waves of elevation due to nonlinear steepening. These observations highlight the potential importance of three-dimensionality on the conversion of tidal flow to internal waves in the rotating ocean.
    Description
    Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1789-1797, doi:10.1175/JPO-D-16-0240.1.
    Collections
    • Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering (AOP&E)
    Suggested Citation
    Journal of Physical Oceanography 47 (2017): 1789-1797
     

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Thumbnail

      The 1998 WHOI/IOS/ONR internal solitary wave workshop : contributed papers 

      Duda, Timothy F.; Farmer, David M. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1999-07)
      A workshop entitled "Internal Solitary Waves in the Ocean: Their Physics and Implications for Acoustics, Biology, and Geology" was held during October, 1998 in Sydney, British Columbia, Canada. It was jointly organized by ...
    • Thumbnail

      Coupled acoustic mode propagation through continental-shelf internal solitary waves 

      Preisig, James C.; Duda, Timothy F. (IEEE, 1997-04)
      Three techniques are used to investigate mode coupling as acoustic energy passes through continental-shelf internal solitary waves (ISW's). Results from all techniques agree. The waves considered here are single downward ...
    • Thumbnail

      Synthetic Aperture Radar observations of resonantly generated internal solitary waves at Race Point Channel (Cape Cod) 

      da Silva, Jose C. B.; Helfrich, Karl R. (American Geophysical Union, 2008-11-20)
      Synthetic Aperture Radar images revealed the two-dimensional propagation characteristics of short-period internal solitary waves in Race Point Channel in Massachusetts Bay. The images and in situ measurements of the flow ...
    All Items in WHOAS are protected by original copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. WHOAS also supports the use of the Creative Commons licenses for original content.
    A service of the MBLWHOI Library | About WHOAS
    Contact Us | Send Feedback | Privacy Policy
    Core Trust Logo