Simulations of low-mode internal tides in realistic mean flows

Samuel Maurice Kelly, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, United States; MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States, Pierre F J Lermusiaux, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge, MA, United States, Timothy F Duda, WHOI, Woods Hole, United States and Patrick J Haley Jr, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge, United States
Abstract:
Large-scale internal tides can be modeled as vertical modes that propagate as linear shallow-water waves and are coupled by sloping topography, horizontal density gradients, and background currents. Here, this framework is used to analyze and simulate internal-tide generation, propagation, and scattering in idealized and realistic settings. First, idealized simulations with the Coupled Shallow Water model (CSW) are used to assess the sensitivity of internal-tide generation to horizontal resolution and vertical resolution (i.e., the number of vertical modes). Next, the dynamical effects of background conditions on internal-tide propagation and scattering are analyzed in realistic data-assimilating simulations of the Middle Atlantic Bight, which were conducted with the MSEAS primitive equation model. Lastly, we include linearized advection terms in CSW and simulate large-scale internal-tide interactions with the Gulf Stream in the western North Atlantic. The results provide context for previous observations of incoherent internal tides on the New Jersey continental slope.
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