Energy cascade in the Garrett-Munk spectrum of internal gravity waves

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Wu, Yue, Pan, Yulin
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Wu, Yue
Pan, Yulin
author_facet Wu, Yue
Pan, Yulin
contents We study the spectral energy transfer due to wave-triad interactions in the Garrett-Munk spectrum of internal gravity waves (IGWs) based on a numerical evaluation of the collision integral in the wave kinetic equation. Our numerical evaluation builds on the reduction of the collision integral on the resonant manifold for a horizontally isotropic spectrum. We directly evaluate the downscale energy flux available for ocean mixing, whose value is in close agreement with the empirical finescale parameterization. We further decompose the energy transfer into contributions from different mechanisms, including local interactions and three types of nonlocal interactions, namely parametric subharmonic instability (PSI), elastic scattering (ES) and induced diffusion (ID). Through analysis on the role of each type of interaction, we resolve two long-standing paradoxes regarding the mechanism for forward cascade in frequency and zero ID flux for GM76 spectrum. In addition, our analysis estimates the contribution of each mechanism to the energy transfer in each spectral direction, and reveals new understanding of the importance of local interactions and ES in the energy transfer.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2305_13110
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Energy cascade in the Garrett-Munk spectrum of internal gravity waves
Wu, Yue
Pan, Yulin
Fluid Dynamics
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
We study the spectral energy transfer due to wave-triad interactions in the Garrett-Munk spectrum of internal gravity waves (IGWs) based on a numerical evaluation of the collision integral in the wave kinetic equation. Our numerical evaluation builds on the reduction of the collision integral on the resonant manifold for a horizontally isotropic spectrum. We directly evaluate the downscale energy flux available for ocean mixing, whose value is in close agreement with the empirical finescale parameterization. We further decompose the energy transfer into contributions from different mechanisms, including local interactions and three types of nonlocal interactions, namely parametric subharmonic instability (PSI), elastic scattering (ES) and induced diffusion (ID). Through analysis on the role of each type of interaction, we resolve two long-standing paradoxes regarding the mechanism for forward cascade in frequency and zero ID flux for GM76 spectrum. In addition, our analysis estimates the contribution of each mechanism to the energy transfer in each spectral direction, and reveals new understanding of the importance of local interactions and ES in the energy transfer.
title Energy cascade in the Garrett-Munk spectrum of internal gravity waves
topic Fluid Dynamics
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.13110