Internal tide generation at a continental shelf/slope junction: A comparison between theory and a laboratory experiment |
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| Authors: | Peter G Baines Fang Xin-Hua |
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| Institution: | CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Vic. Australia;Shandong College of Oceanography, Qingdao People''s Republic of China |
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| Abstract: | Observations of internal tide generation over continental slopes in a laboratory experiment have been carried out, with the objectives of making comparisons with linear generation theory and investigating its limitations. Both continuous and layered stratification have been considered. A measure of the amplitude of the barotropic tidal forcing (and hence of non-linearity) is given by the Froude Number F = usb/cw, where usb is the maximum barotropic tidal velocity at the shelf break, and cw is the long-wave speed of the lowest internal mode.For continuous stratification, good agreement was obtained for “steep” slopes (α/c > 1), where α is the slope at the continental slope and c is the slope of the internal wave rays of tidal frequency), even for quite large amplitude motions (F < 1.6), and the upper limit of its quantitative usefulness was not reached. For “flat” slopes (α/c < 1) reasonable agreement was also obtained, even up to quite amplitudes (F < 3.1), although some departure from linear theory was apparent.For two-layer flows the applicability of linear theory was much more restricted. For F 0.5 there was only qualitative agreement and for larger F (>1) significant differences were observed. The latter were due to the substantial advection and associated hydraulic jumps which occured seaward of the shelf-break during the ebb-phase of the barotropic tide. Shelf-break values of F > 1 are common in the ocean. |
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