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The role of stratification and initial conditions on the propagation and decay of near-inertial waves on a \(\beta \)-plane

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Abstract

In this study, we model the evolution of near-inertial waves (NIWs) under the \(\beta \)-effect by imposing initial zonal velocity in the mixed layer. We consider various background stratification values and initial velocity magnitudes, to investigate their effect on the wave characteristics and the decay rate of mixed layer kinetic energy. Increasing the interior stratification strength led to increased energy content in the higher vertical modes and also resulted in a faster decay of mixed layer kinetic energy. Double-inertial waves are observed in almost all the simulations, and the energy content in these waves was found to increase with an increase in the interior stratification strength as well as with the initial velocity amplitude. The mixed layer energy decay rate obtained from our simulations agrees well with the theoretical estimate by (Moehlis and Llewellyn Smith , 2001); however, we found a significant disagreement at higher velocity amplitudes. A strong shear zone is observed at the base of the mixed layer and the spatial extent of this zone increases with an increase in the strength of the stratification, initial velocity amplitude, and with the inclusion of the pycnocline. This study also highlights the importance of accurate parameterization of NIWs in the global models, as we found that the decay rate of mixed-layer kinetic energy is very sensitive to the vertical eddy viscosity parametrization in the model.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support by the Science and Engineering Research Board SRG/2019/000133. Siva Heramb Peddada acknowledges research scholarship from the Ministry of Education, India. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions to further improve the quality of this manuscript.

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  1. Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, 110016, India

    Siva Heramb Peddada & Vamsi Krishna Chalamalla

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  1. Siva Heramb Peddada
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  2. Vamsi Krishna Chalamalla
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Correspondence to Vamsi Krishna Chalamalla.

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Peddada, S.H., Chalamalla, V.K. The role of stratification and initial conditions on the propagation and decay of near-inertial waves on a \(\beta \)-plane. Ocean Dynamics 73, 387–406 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-023-01542-2

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