Internal Tide Generation and Propagation in a Strong, Sheared Current
2011
Johnston, Shaun | MacKinnon, Jennifer | Rudnick, Daniel
The long-term goal of this research is to better understand the generation, propagation, and dissipation of large amplitude internal tides. The specific objective of this research project was to obtain time series and spatial structure information on internal tidal propagation and evolution westward from the ridges in Luzon Strait during the Internal Waves in Straits Experiment (IWISE). Since writing our proposal, our approach has changed considerably due to limited ship time. Spray gliders 33 and 35 are acting as relocatable virtual moorings from June-August 2011 in the South China Sea for a spring-neap cycle before relocating. Both Sprays are equipped with an acoustic Doppler profiler (ADP) to measure currents directly. The gliders were modified to dive at 30 degrees instead of the usual 17 degrees to complete a dive cycle from 0-500 meters and back to the surface in 1.5 hours, which better resolves the semidiurnal tides. MacKinnon contributed moored profilers from her faculty startup package to the mooring array in Luzon Strait for the main experiment and also participated in the pilot experiment in August-September 2010. A separate report for this work will be written. Using a glider as a virtual mooring that can be relocated is a novel approach. Future work will use this approach to study internal waves and tides.
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