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PHY-06 Oceanic Internal Waves
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Along-slope Bottom Currents Driven by Dissipation of Internal Tides in the northeastern South China Sea
Jiannan Wang* , Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources Xiaohui Xie, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) and School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shaofeng Li, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) Han Zhang, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) and State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Wei Li, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources and School of Oceanography, Zhe Jiang University Dake Chen, Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) and School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University |
Recent mooring observations on the continental slope of the South China Sea (SCS) showed that an along-slope bottom current can be generated when internal tides are dissipated near the seafloor during spring tides. In this study, two sets of mooring data collected at two deeper sites (M1 and M2) on this continental slope are used to explore universality of internal wave driven bottom flows and test the ability of the previous theory in estimating wave-induced along-slope currents. At M1, it is found that strong near-bottom turbulent dissipation is driven by the critical reflection of diurnal internal tides on the continental slope, with maximum dissipation rate of 3.9×10-7 W/kg. Because of obliquely incident of diurnal internal tides to the slope, near-bottom wave dissipation generates a southwestward along-slope current during spring tide, with the maximum velocity exceeding 6 cm/s. At M2, where there are larger internal tides, stronger along-slope currents are observed, with the annual average velocity exceeding 10 cm/s. Furthermore, the observed along-slope currents showed a clear ~14-day spring-neap cycle in the entire year-long mooring period, which is consistent with the spring-neap cycle of diurnal internal tides. Based on an assumption that the generation of along-slope currents is mainly caused by near-bottom dissipation of high mode (≥mode-4) internal tides induced by the scatter of low-mode internal tides, the order of along-slope current velocity estimated by the theory can be consistent with the observations. |
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