Internal gravity waves

Internal gravity waves

Gravity waves occur at interfaces between high and low density fluids. Most people are familiar with water surface waves, which act between water (as in lakes or oceans) and the air.

Where low density water overlies high density water in the ocean, internal gravity waves propagate along the boundary. They are especially common over the continental shelf regions of the world oceans and where brackish water overlies salt water at the outlet of large rivers.

There is typically little surface expression of the waves, aside from slick bands that can form over the trough of the waves.

Wavelengths vary from centimetres to kilometres with periods of seconds to hours respectivel

References

Thomson, R.E. 1981. "Oceanography of the British Columbia Coast." Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 56. Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Ottawa. 291p.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Gravity wave — In fluid dynamics, gravity waves are waves generated in a fluid medium or at the interface between two media (e.g. the atmosphere or ocean) which has the restoring force of gravity or buoyancy.When a fluid parcel is displaced on an interface or… …   Wikipedia

  • Internal wave — Internal waves are gravity waves that oscillate within, rather than on the surface of, a fluid medium. They arise from perturbations to hydrostatic equilibrium, where balance is maintained between the force of gravity and the buoyant restoring… …   Wikipedia

  • Dispersion (water waves) — This article is about dispersion of waves on a water surface. For other forms of dispersion, see Dispersion (disambiguation). In fluid dynamics, dispersion of water waves generally refers to frequency dispersion, which means that waves of… …   Wikipedia

  • Lee waves — In meteorology, lee waves, are atmospheric standing waves. The most common form is mountain waves, which are atmospheric internal gravity waves. These were discovered in 1933 by two German glider pilots, Hans Deutschmann and Wolf Hirth, above the …   Wikipedia

  • Boussinesq approximation (water waves) — In fluid dynamics, the Boussinesq approximation for water waves is an approximation valid for weakly non linear and fairly long waves. The approximation is named after Joseph Boussinesq, who first derived them in response to the observation by… …   Wikipedia

  • Baroclinity — In fluid dynamics, the baroclinity (sometimes called baroclinicity) is a measure of the stratification in a fluid. A baroclinic atmosphere is one for which the density depends on both the temperature and the pressure; contrast this with… …   Wikipedia

  • Lee wave — The wind flows towards a mountain and produces a first oscillation (A) followed by more waves. the following waves will have lower amplitude because of the natural damping. Lenticular clouds stuck on top of the flow (A) and (B) will appear… …   Wikipedia

  • MEMO Model — The MEMO Model (version 6.2) is a Eulerian non hydrostatic prognostic mesoscale model for wind flow simulation. It was developed by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in collaboration with the Universität Karlsruhe. The MEMO Model together… …   Wikipedia

  • Convective available potential energy — A skew T plot showing a morning sounding with a large hydrolapse followed by an afternoon sounding showing the cooling which occurred in the mid levels resulting in an unstable atmosphere as surface parcels have now become negatively buoyant. The …   Wikipedia

  • Brunt-Väisälä frequency — In atmospheric dynamics, oceanography, and geophysics, the Brunt Väisälä frequency, or buoyancy frequency, is the frequency at which a vertically displaced parcel will oscillate within a statically stable environment. In the atmosphere,: N equiv… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”