[1] The generation of secondary internal waves by the interaction of a large-amplitude internal solitary wave with the Dreadnought Bank in the Andaman Sea (6 400N, 95 470E) is shown by analyzing a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image acquired by the European Remote Sensing satellite ERS-2 and by carrying out model calculations. Although the Dreadnought Bank is quite deep (241 m), the model calc...

Investigation of the dynamics of internal gravity waves often includes the interrelationship between wave amplitudes, wave speeds, and wavelengths. These relationships are commonly thought of as dispersion relations. Because internal gravity waves are the result of nonlinear dynamics dispersion relations are a challenge to obtain in a quantitative sense. Model data for internal gravity waves in...

[1] We use satellite imagery and numerical modeling to investigate the characteristics of Lombok Strait nonlinear internal waves in relation to the dominant monsoon seasonality. Two basic wave types are identified, the first of which represents the well‐known arc‐like internal wave (AIW) that radiates uniformly away from its generation region near the sill in regular sequences of ranked soliton...

Time series measurements from an array of temperature miniloggers in a line at constant depth along the sloping boundary of a lake are used to describe the `internal surf zone' where internal waves interact with the sloping boundary. More small positive temperature time derivatives are recorded than negative, but there are more large negative values than positive, giving the overall distributio...

Using a matched asymptotic expansion we analyse the two-dimensional, near-critical reflection of a weakly nonlinear internal gravity wave from a sloping boundary in a uniformly stratified fluid. Taking a distinguished limit in which the amplitude of the incident wave, the dissipation, and the departure from criticality are all small, we obtain a reduced description of the dynamics. This simplif...

This paper considers the large-scale dynamics generated in the upper atmosphere by the destabilization of a linear internal gravity wave and its eventual restabilization through nonlinear processes into a coherent pattern. The assumption of a strongly dissipative medium is relevant to wave propagation in the thermosphere range above 100 km. A parametric instability analysis is carried out invol...

Wintertime stratification on Oregon’s continental shelf often produces a near-bottom layer of dense fluid that acts as an internal waveguide on which nonlinear internal waves propagate. Shipboard profiling and bottom lander observations capture disturbances that exhibit properties of internal solitary waves, bores and gravity currents. Wave-like pulses are highly turbulent (instantaneous bed st...

Various approaches have been developed over the last four decades to characterize the magnitude of nonlinear interaction between triads of internal waves in stratified oceanographic flows. The present manuscript compares some of these approaches and demonstrates that, in the limit of long internal waves in hydrostatic balance and in the absence of rotation, these various approaches predict diff...

Over the past 10 years, synthetic aperture radars (SAR) have frequently detected pronounced signatures of nonlinear, coastal internal waves 1-6 that are produced by the interaction of short-wavelength surface waves with internal wave-induced surface currents. A qualitative representation of the signature generation process is shown in Fig. 1 for a group of nonlinear internal waves. At the leadi...

Highly resolved pressure measurements on the seafloor over New Jersey’s continental shelf reveal the pressure signature of nonlinear internal waves of depression as negative pressure perturbations. The sign of the perturbation is determined by the dominance of the internal hydrostatic pressure (pWh) due to isopycnal displacement over the contributions of external hydrostatic pressure ( 0g H; H ...