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van Haren 2006
van Haren, H. (2006). Nonlinear motions at the internal tide source. Geophysical Research Letters 33: doi: 10.1029/2006GL025851. issn: 0094-8276.

Oceanic internal tidal wave generation is commonly modeled via interaction of a sinusoidal barotropic vertical velocity W with topography. However, general w above slopes are predominantly nonlinear, as appears in some nonhydrostatic models. Here, 1--2 Hz sampled observations are presented from 2--84 m above the bottom (mab) at ~1400 m at the Bay of Biscay continental slope. Fronts are observed that all propagate upslope having heights >50 mab and more or less, ¿5%, occurring at the tidal periodicity. They are accompanied by O(10 min) pulses of w≈0.10 m s-1 $gg$W and irregular small-scale waves superimposed on an asymmetric tidal signal. This nonlinearity is further exemplified by variations in frontal arrival and steepness, height, form, and is causing: i) internal tidal intermittency of ~10 tidal periods, ii) nonlinear generation of internal tidal higher harmonics at the source. The observations suggest internal tide generation in a broadband instead of a monochromatic beam.

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Abstract

Keywords
Nonlinear Geophysics, Nonlinear waves, shock waves, solitons (0689, 2487, 3280, 3285, 4275, 6934, 7851, 7852), Oceanography, Physical, Internal and inertial waves, Oceanography, Physical, General or miscellaneous
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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