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Internal waves in a summer pycnocline of the East China Sea

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Abstract

The bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data obtained over a 70-h period in the East China Sea, about 80 miles to the southwest of the Jeju Island, are used to study internal waves in relation to tidal cycle. The spectral densities of the horizontal velocities followed E h  ∼ f − 1 between f 0 ∼ 0.8 cph and the buoyancy frequency, where f 0 is a transition point connecting the f − 1 subrange and the steep falloff of energy from the semidiurnal spectral maximum at f M2 toward higher frequencies. Manifestation of large-amplitude internal waves in the pycnocline has been mostly observed during a transition phase from high to low barotropic tide.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the scientists and students of the Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology and the crew of R/V Eardo who participated in the 2006 ECS research cruise. The data analysis was supported by the US Office of Naval Research (grant numbers N00014-05-1-0245 and N00014-13-1-0199). JHL was also supported by the KIOST project (E99293).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Environmental and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Iossif Lozovatsky, Priyantha Jinadasa & Harindra Joseph Fernando

  2. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Harindra Joseph Fernando

  3. National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), Crow Island, Colombo 15, Sri Lanka

    Priyantha Jinadasa

  4. Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, 787 Haean-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansans-si, Gyeonggi-do, 426-744, South Korea

    Jae-Hak Lee

Authors
  1. Iossif Lozovatsky
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  2. Priyantha Jinadasa
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  3. Jae-Hak Lee
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  4. Harindra Joseph Fernando
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Correspondence to Iossif Lozovatsky.

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Responsible Editor: Anthony C. Hirst

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Lozovatsky, I., Jinadasa, P., Lee, JH. et al. Internal waves in a summer pycnocline of the East China Sea. Ocean Dynamics 65, 1051–1061 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0858-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0858-2

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