Instability and breakdown of internal gravity waves. I. Linear stability analysis

Abstract

We have performed three-dimensional linear stability analysis, based on Floquet theory, to study the stability of finite amplitude internal gravity waves. This analysis has been used to compute instability growth rates over a range of wave amplitudes and propagation angles, especially waves above and below overturning amplitude, and identifies several new characteristics of wave instability. Computation of instability eigenfunctions has allowed us to analyze the energetics of the instability and to clarify the paths of energy transfer from the base wave to the instability. We find that the presence of wave overturning has no qualitative effect on the wave instability, except for the limiting case when the wavenumber vector is vertical. Instabilities which are nearly two-dimensional are closely related to second-order wave–wave interactions. But the three-dimensional instabilities, more prominent at higher wave amplitudes, may be caused by higher order resonance interactions. The energetics of the instabilities range from being shear driven to being driven by ‘‘density gradient’’ production (the potential energy analog of ‘‘shear’’ production); this characteristic is strongly dependent on wave propagation angle and the three-dimensionality of the instability.