Nonlinear wave-wave interactions in stratified flows: Direct numerical simulations
arXiv:0706.2194 · doi:10.1016/j.physd.2009.01.016
Abstract
To investigate the formation mechanism of energy spectra of internal waves in the oceans, direct numerical simulations are performed. The simulations are based on the reduced dynamical equations of rotating stratified turbulence. In the reduced dynamical equations only wave modes are retained, and vortices and horizontally uniform vertical shears are excluded. Despite the simplifications, our simulations reproduce some key features of oceanic internal-wave spectra: accumulation of energy at near-inertial waves and realistic frequency and horizontal wavenumber dependencies. Furthermore, we provide evidence that formation of the energy spectra in the inertial subrange is dominated by scale-separated interactions with the near-inertial waves. These findings support oceanographers' intuition that spectral energy density of internal waves is the result of predominantly wave-wave interactions.
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- Downscale energy fluxes in scale invariant oceanic internal wave turbulence
- Phenomenology of two-dimensional stably stratified turbulence under large-scale forcing
- Internal gravity waves in stratified flows with and without vortical modes
- Excitation of interfacial waves via near---resonant surface---interfacial wave interactions
- Wave turbulent statistics in non-weak wave turbulence