Vertical momentum transfer by weakly nonlinear inertia-gravity internalwaves

Abstract

Free inertia-gravity internal waves in a plane-parallel flow are considered in the Boussinesq approximation with account of the horizontal turbulent viscosity and diffusion. The dispersion relation and the wave decay rate are derived in the linear approximation. The effect of critical layers, in which the wave frequency with the Doppler shift is equal to the inertial frequency, on the dispersion curves is considered. It is shown that the dispersion curves are cut off in the low-frequency domain due to the critical layers mentioned above. The verticalwave momentum fluxes are nonzero and can be greater than the corresponding turbulent fluxes. It is shown that the Stokes drift velocity component transverse to the direction of propagation of the wave is nonzero with account of the turbulent viscosity and diffusion.