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Dissipative waves excited by internal waves in the thermocline-phase-integral calculation of coupling
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1991
[PDF-76.15 MB]
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Description:We suggest that the sheets of temperature and current gradients observed in the thermocline represent the wavefronts of dissipative waves (viscous and thermal conduction waves) excited by coupling of energy from internal gravity waves. We show that in the presence of observed gradients such coupling should be strong enough for these dissipative waves to be as ubiquitous in the thermocline as the internal gravity waves that produce them. This simple picture accounts for the following observed properties of the sheets: 1) their nearly ubiquitous presence in the thermocline, 2) their nearly horizontal orientation, 3) the small vertical spacing (several meters) separating the sheets, 4) variability in that spacing in both height and time, and 5) the high shears and temperature gradients associated with these sheets. An additional result is that coupling of internal gravity waves to dissipative waves may be a more efficient method of dissipation of energy of internal waves than direct dissipation by the loss term in the refractive index for internal gravity waves.
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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