Abstract
A total of 137 internal solitary waves (ISWs) are captured during a field experiment conducted in the deep basin west of the Luzon Strait (LS) from March to August, 2010. Mooring observations reveal that a fully developed ISW owns a maximum westward velocity of more than 1.8 m/s and an amplitude of about 200 m. The ISWs in the South China Sea (SCS) are most active in July, which may be due to the strong stratification in summer. Most of the ISW episodes are detected around and after the 1st or 15th lunar day, indicating that the ISW in the SCS is triggered by astronomic tides. Half part of the observed ISWs were detected around 19:00 local time, which can be explained by the fact that type-a ISWs emerged in the evening at roughly the same time each day. The propagation direction of the ISWs and the astronomic tides in the LS show that the area south of the Batan Island is probably the main source region of the type-a ISWs, while the area south of Itbayat Island and south of the Batan Island is likely the main source region of the type-b ISWs observed at the mooring. Moreover, for the resonance of semidiurnal internal tides emitting from the double ridges in the LS, the underwater ridge south of the Itbayat Island and south of the Batan Island is believed to favor the generation of the energetic ISWs.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alford Matthew H. 2003. Redistribution of energy available for ocean mixing by long-range propagation of internal waves. Nature, 423(6936): 159–162
Alford Matthew H, Lien Ren Chieh, Simmons Harper, et al. 2010. Speed and evolution of nonlinear internal waves transiting the South China Sea. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 40(6): 1338–1355
Alford Matthew H, MacKinnon Jennifer A, Nash Jonathan D, et al. 2011. Energy flux and dissipation in Luzon Strait: Two tales of two ridges. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 41(11): 2211–2222
Apel John R, Ostrovsky Lev A, Stepanyants Yury A, et al. 2007. Internal solitons in the ocean and their effect on underwater sound. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 121(2): 695–722
Boyer Timothy, Levitus Sydney, Garcia Hernan, et al. 2005. Objective analyses of annual, seasonal, and monthly temperature and sa-linity for the World Ocean on a 0.25° grid. International Journal of Climatology, 25: 931–945
Buijsman Maarten C, Legg Sonya, Klymak Jody. 2012. Double-Ridge Internal Tide Interference and Its Effect on Dissipation in Luzon Strait. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 42(8): 1337–1356
Buijsman Maarten C, McWilliams J C, Jackson C R. 2010. East-west asymmetry in nonlinear internal waves from Luzon Strait. Journal of Geophysical Research, 115(C10): C10057
Cai Shuqun, Long Xiaomin, Gan Zijun. 2002. A numerical study of the generation and propagation of internal solitary waves in the Luzon Strait. Oceanologica Acta, 25(2): 51–60
Cai Shuqun, Xie Jieshuo. 2010. A propagation model for the internal solitary waves in the northern South China Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 115(C12): C12074
Cai Shuqun, Xie Jieshuo, He Jianling. 2012. An overview of internal solitary waves in the South China Sea. Surveys in Geophysics, 33(5): 927–943
Egbert Gary D, Erofeeva Svetlana Y. 2002. Efficient Inverse Modeling of Barotropic Ocean Tides. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 19(2): 183–204
Egbert Gary D, Ray R D. 2000. Significant dissipation of tidal energy in the deep ocean inferred from satellite altimeter data. Nature, 405(6788): 775–778
Farmer David, Li Qiang, Park Jae-Hun. 2009. Internal wave observations in the South China Sea: The role of rotation and nonlinearity. Atmosphere-Ocean, 47(4): 267–280
Gerkema T, Zimmerman J T F. 1995. Generation of nonlinear internal tides and solitary waves. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 25(6): 1081–1094
Helfrich Karl R, Grimshaw Roger H J. 2008. Nonlinear Disintegration of the Internal Tide. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 38(3): 686–701
Hendershott Myrl C. 1973. Ocean tides. Eos Trans AGU, 54(2): 76–86
Klymak Jody M, Pinkel Robert, Liu Cho-Teng, et al. 2006. Prototypical solitons in the South China Sea. Geophysical Research Letters, 33(11): 1–4
Lee Chi-Yuan, Beardsley Robert C. 1974. The Generation of Long Nonlinear Internal Waves in a Weakly Stratified Shear Flow. J Geophys Res, 79(3): 453–462
Li Qiang, Farmer David M. 2011. The Generation and Evolution of Nonlinear Internal Waves in the Deep Basin of the South China Sea. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 41(7): 1345–1363
Lien R-C, Tang T Y, Chang M H, et al. 2005. Energy of nonlinear internal waves in the South China Sea. Geophys Res Lett, 32(5): 1–5
Liu Antony K, Chang Y Steve, Hsu Ming-K, et al. 1998. Evolution of nonlinear internal waves in the East and South China Seas. Journal of Geophysical Research, 103(C4): 7995–8008
Ramp S R, Yang Y J, Bahr F L. 2010. Characterizing the nonlinear internal wave climate in the northeastern South China Sea. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 17(5): 481–498
Ramp Steven R, Tang Tswen Yung, Duda Timothy F, et al. 2004. Internal solitons in the northeastern South China Sea. Part I: Sources and deep water propagation. Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of, 29(4): 1157–1181
Shaw Ping-Tung, Ko Dong Shan, Chao Shenn-Yu. 2009. Internal solitary waves induced by flow over a ridge: With applications to the northern South China Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research, 114(C2): C02019
Warn-Varnas A, Hawkins J, Lamb K G, et al. 2010. Solitary wave generation dynamics at Luzon Strait. Ocean Modelling, 31(1-2): 9–27
Zhang Z, Fringer O B, Ramp S R. 2011. Three-dimensional, nonhydrostatic numerical simulation of nonlinear internal wave generation and propagation in the South China Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research, 116(C5): C05022
Zheng Quanan, Susanto R Dwi, Ho Chung Ru, et al. 2007. Statistical and dynamical analyses of generation mechanisms of solitary internal waves in the northern South China Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112(C3): C03021
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Fondation item: The Program for New Century Excellent Talents in Universities of China under contract No. NCET-10-0764; the National High Technology Research and Development (863) Program of China under contract No. 2013AA09A502; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41176010, 91028008, 40890153, 41176008 and 40776005.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, X., Zhao, W., Tian, J. et al. Mooring observations of internal solitary waves in the deep basin west of Luzon Strait. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 33, 82–89 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-014-0416-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-014-0416-7