INTERNAL WAVES GENERATED BY TIDAL FORCING : SCATTERING AND SOLITON GENERATION
LUNDI 15 NOVEMBRE 2010 à 11 h
Amphithéatre Nougaro
Matthieu MERCIER, END Lab, MIT (USA)
Internal waves are ubiquitous in the ocean, and are important to understand energy exchange. Several spatial structures can be encountered, from very localized beams closed to topographies to very large scale modes away from generation sites.
We have studied the evolution of both types of structures and investigated their interactions with topographies and complicated stratifications.
Waves interacting with topographies, referred to as scattering mechanism, is governed mainly by two parameters associated to the topography, the criticality and the ratio of its height to the depth of the fluid.
The interaction of internal waves with complex stratification can be analyzed as a function of one parameter the wavespeed of internal waves and interfacial waves. Nonlinearities produced can lead to the generation of internal solitary waves.
