Abstract
Abstract
Highlights
Several decades of internal wave field observations have exposed the apparent existence of a universal internal wave continuum, the Garrett–Munk (GM) spectrum (Garrett &Munk 1975)
Our analysis reveals that the projection of wave energy to smaller scales at wave attractor frequencies persists in the large-amplitude single- and multi-frequency regimes
We thereby consolidate the general thought (Sibgatullin & Ermanyuk 2019) that wave attractors could contribute to the energy cascade towards dissipative scales in the ocean
Summary
Several decades of internal wave field observations have exposed the apparent existence of a universal internal wave continuum, the Garrett–Munk (GM) spectrum Oceanic internal wave forcing is strong at a discrete set of tidal frequencies (as opposed to being part of a broad-band continuum) These tidal frequencies would need to fall into one of these narrow bands in order to excite a simple attractor directly (Echeverri et al 2011; Guo & Holmes-Cerfon 2016). In contrast to the TRI mechanism based on single-frequency forcing, in this regime we observe that multi-frequency forcing leads to linear geometric focusing, mixing and to TWIs. The waves triadically generated by TWI may themselves fall into frequency bands corresponding to simple attractors which may lead to their subsequent amplification.
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