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Observations of non-linear internal waves in the South China Sea
Luca Centurioni, Peter Niiler
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
lcenturioni@ucsd.edu(Abstract received 05/09/2005 for session A)
ABSTRACT
Large amplitude depression-like internal solitary waves with vertical amplitudes in excess of 80 m and over 100 km long are known to occur in the northern part of the South China Sea. They are thought to originate in the Luzon Strait and propagate westward. The processes by which the waves are generated are still unclear. In the attempt to measure the isopycnal displacement and the three-dimensional absolute velocity field associated with these waves, we designed and built four drifting thermistor chains equipped with Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers and GPS receivers. An array of four instruments was deployed at 119.5E, 20.5N on May 2, 2005 and was recovered after 2.5 days. On May 7 we re-deployed two drifting chains at the same location together with 29 SVP drifters equipped with GPS receiver. The two chains were recovered after 5 days in order to sample the spring tide of May 8. Some preliminary results are presented.
All the devices moved to the south-west and the surface trajectories show the signature of tides and internal waves. The internal tide signal dominated by the diurnal component and the associated solitons with amplitudes larger than 100 m are also visible in the temperature data. Concurrent CTD casts show that the waves signature extends from the surface to at least 1000 m depth.
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2005 LAPCOD Meeting, Lerici, Italy, June 13-17, 2005