Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability, characterized by the distinctive finite-amplitude billows it generates, is an important mechanism in the development of turbulence in the stratified interior of the ocean. In particular, it is often assumed that the onset of turbulence in internal waves begins in this way. Clear recognition of the importance...
General circulation models (GCMs) predict that the global hydrological cycle will change in response to anthropogenic warming. However, these predictions remain uncertain, in particular, for precipitation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013, https://doi .org/10.1017/CB09781107415324.004). Held and Soden (2006, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3990.1) suggest that as lower tropospheric water vapor concentration increases in a...
The Taylor–Goldstein (T–G) equation is extended to include the effects of small-scale
turbulence represented by non-uniform vertical and horizontal eddy viscosity and
diffusion coefficients. The vertical coefficients of viscosity and diffusion, A[subscript V] and K[subscript V],
respectively, are assumed to be equal and are expressed in terms of the buoyancy...
Collisions of counter-propagating solitary waves are investigated experimentally.
Precision measurements of water-surface profiles are made with the use of the laser
induced fluorescence (LIF) technique. During the collision, the maximum wave
amplitude exceeds that calculated by the superposition of the incident solitary waves,
and agrees well with both the asymptotic...
An atmospheric stationary wave teleconnection mechanism is proposed to explain how ENSO may affect the Tibetan Plateau snow depth and thereby the south Asian monsoons. Using statistical analysis, the short available record of satellite estimates of snow depth, and ray tracing, it is shown that wintertime ENSO conditions in the...
Alongshore flow in the direction of propagation of coastal trapped waves can result in upwelling at the shelfbreak. The intensity of this upwelling can be comparable in magnitude to wind-driven coastal upwelling, with its associated ecological features. Recent numerical experiments by Matano & Palma indicate that this upwelling results from...
The semidiurnal mode-1 internal tide receives 0.1-0.3 TW from the surface tide and is capable of propagating across ocean basins. The ultimate fate of mode-1 energy after long-distance propagation is poorly constrained by existing observations and numerical simulations. Here, global results from a two-dimensional semi-analytical model indicate that topographic scattering...
Alongshore flow in the direction of propagation of coastal trapped waves can result in upwelling at the shelfbreak. The intensity of this upwelling can be comparable in magnitude to wind-driven coastal upwelling, with its associated ecological features. Recent numerical experiments by Matano & Palma indicate that this upwelling results from...
In the companion paper (Chen & Yeh, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 749, 2014, pp. 577–596), collisions of counter-propagating solitary waves were studied experimentally by analysing the measured water-surface variations. Here we study the flow fields associated with the collisions. With the resolved velocity data obtained in the laboratory, the flow...
In situ observations of tidally driven turbulence were obtained in a small channel that transects the crest of the Mendocino Ridge, a site of mixed (diurnal and semidiurnal) tides. Diurnal tides are subinertial at this latitude, and once per day a trapped tide leads to large flows through the channel...