INTERNAL WAVES AS A PATHWAY TO MIXING Gibson Leavitt

The overturning circulation within the ocean is of fundamental importance for climatological processes, namely the transportation of heat and carbon. The energy required to drive this circulation is supplied by the breaking of the internal tide, with wave-wave resonant interactions hypothesized to act as its primary driver. Using the computational fluids model SOMAR, laboratory experiments were numerically simulated to examine wave-wave interactions under different Reynold’s regimes. As viscosity increased, the minimum frequency of the waves also increased, resulting in a narrower band of wave frequencies. Additionally, we observed the cascade of energy towards smaller spatial scales via resonant triad interactions, while other categories of non-local resonant interactions were not present. While this result agrees with the most prominent theory of the energy cascade, future research should focus on creating simulations under more realistic oceanic conditions.