Weakly nonlinear non-Boussinesq internal gravity wavepackets (Q629017)

Internal gravity wavepackets induce a horizontal mean flow that interacts nonlinearly with the waves if they are of moderately large amplitude. In this work, the authors present a new theoretical derivation for the wave-induced mean flow of internal gravity waves. This derivation is used to examine the weakly nonlinear evolution of internal wavepackets in two dimensions. By restricting the two-dimensional waves to be horizontally periodic and vertically localized, the authors derive the nonlinear Schrödinger equation describing the vertical and temporal evolutions of amplitude envelope of non-Boussinesq waves. The results are compared with fully nonlinear numerical simulations restricted to two dimensions. The initially small-amplitude wavepacket grows to become weakly nonlinear, as it propagates upward due to non-Boussinesq effects. In comparison with the results of fully nonlinear numerical simulations, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation is found to capture the dominant initial behaviour of the waves, indicating that the interaction of the waves with the induced horizontal mean flow is the dominant mechanism for weakly nonlinear evolution. In particular, due to modulational stability, the hydrostatic waves propagate well above the level at which the linear theory predicts that they should overturn, whereas strongly non-hydrostatic waves, which are modulationally unstable, break below the overturning level predicted by the linear theory.