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Internal wave boluses as coherent structures in a continuously stratified fluid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2020

Guilherme S. Vieira Open the ORCID record for Guilherme S. Vieira [Opens in a new window]  and
Michael R. Allshouse Open the ORCID record for Michael R. Allshouse [Opens in a new window]
Guilherme S. Vieira
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA02115, USA
Michael R. Allshouse*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA02115, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: m.allshouse@northeastern.edu
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Abstract

Internal waves shoaling on the continental slope can break and form materially coherent vortices called boluses. These boluses are able to trap and transport material up the continental slope, yet the global extent of bolus transport is unknown. Previous studies of bolus formation primarily focused on systems consisting of two layers of uniform density, which do not account for the presence of ocean pycnoclines of finite thickness. We use hyperbolic tangent profiles to model the density stratification in our simulations and demonstrate the impact of the pycnocline on the bolus. A spectral clustering method is used to objectively identify the bolus as a Lagrangian coherent structure that contains the material advected upslope. The bolus size and displacement upslope are examined as a function of the pycnocline thickness, incoming wave energy, density change across the pycnocline and topographic slope. The dependence of bolus transport on the pycnocline thickness demonstrates that boluses in continuous stratifications tend to be larger and transport material further than in corresponding two-layer stratifications.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Internal waves Geophysical and Geological Flows: Stratified flows
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 885 , 25 February 2020 , A35
Copyright
© 2020 Cambridge University Press

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Viera et al. supplementary movie 1

Density perturbation field ρ' of the sample simulation presented in section 2.2 for the (top) full domain and (bottom) breaking region. Positive values (red) represent fluid displaced upward and negative values (blue) represent fluid displaced downward. The solid gray lines represent isopycnals. The isopycnal ρ=1015 kg/m3 is drawn in black and used to highlight the bolust front boundary. The breaking region (bottom) corresponds to the region surrounded by the thick black box in the full domain (top).

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Viera et al. supplementary movie 2

Density perturbation field ρ' of the sample simulation presented in section 2.2 for the (top) full domain and (bottom) breaking region with passive tracers distributed outside and inside the breaking zone. The tracers in the constant depth region temporarily oscillate vertically as the wave passes. Tracers in the breaking region are entrained in the resulting vortex demonstrating how the breaking mechanism results in effective transport.

Download Viera et al. supplementary movie 2(Video)
Video 37 MB

Viera et al. supplementary movie 3

(top) Evolution of the sample simulation tracers with the tracer color determined by cluster membership. Seven clusters have been identified, with the Lagrangian bolus cluster represented in green. (bottom) The time evolution for the bolus cluster from t0 = 19.25s to tf = 65s. Instantaneous positions of the bolus presented in figure 5(b) are presented here as well. The trajectory of the bolus center of volume is illustrated in gray.

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Video 30.8 MB

Viera et al. supplementary movie 4

Time evolution of the boluses, from t0 to tf indicated by the time values on the left and right, for stratifications with pycnocline thicknesses δ = 0.025, 0.1, 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3m. This movie corresponds to a dynamic view of the data presented in figure 8.

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Video 45.5 MB
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Supplementary material A.

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Supplementary material B.

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Supplementary material C.

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Supplementary material D.

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Additional movie descriptions

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