Weakly nonlinear analysis of wind-driven gravity waves

DOI10.1017/S0022112003007699MaRDI QIDQ4656517zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors A. Alexakis, Yuan-Nan Young, R. Rosner

Publication date 11 March 2005

Published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204002

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Water waves, gravity waves; dispersion and scattering, nonlinear interaction (76B15) Internal waves for incompressible inviscid fluids (76B55)

Abstract: We study the weakly non-linear development of shear-driven gravity waves, and investigate the mixing properties of the finite amplitude solutions. Calculations to date have been restricted to the linear theory, which predicts that gravity waves are amplified by an influx of energy through the critical layer, where the velocity of the wind equals the wave phase velocity. Because of the presence of a critical layer, ordinary weakly non-linear methods fail; in this paper, we use a rescaling at the critical layer and matched asymptotics to derive an amplitude equation for the most unstable wave, under the simplifying assumption that the physical domain is periodic. These amplitude equations are solved numerically, in their quasi-steady limit, for the cases of small density ratio (applicable to oceanography), and for arbitrary density ratio but strong stratification (for more general physical/astrophysical situations). In addition to the familiar asymptotic growth found in other inviscid flow, we find that, for the air over water case (provided the maximum wind velocity is in the range of $0.2mperssim1mpers$), the single mode transitions from exponential to algebraic growth when the amplitude of the wave is as small as $hsim10^{-5}lambda$; hence, it may be difficult to observe the linear regime for this case in numerical simulations. We also find that the weakly non-linear flow allows for super-diffusive particle transport with an exponent $sim3/2$, consistent with Venkataramani's results.

Recommendations

• On the nonlinear evolution of wind-driven gravity waves
• Nonlinear interactions between gravity waves and background winds
• Weak turbulent approach to the wind-generated gravity sea waves
• Wind-forced modulations of finite-depth gravity waves
• On the strength of the weakly nonlinear theory for surface gravity waves
• The role of constant vorticity on weakly nonlinear surface gravity waves
• Analysis of a class of simplified models for nonlinear gravity wave interactions
• Multi-wave interaction theory for wind-generated surface gravity waves
• Wind effects on the nonlinear evolution of slowly varying gravity—capillary waves

Cited in

(7)

• Nonlinear interaction of wind-driven oblique surface waves and parametric growth of lower frequency modes
• The role of constant vorticity on weakly nonlinear surface gravity waves
• On Holmboe's instability for smooth shear and density profiles
• Multi-scale dynamics of the interaction between waves and mean flows: From nonlinear WKB theory to gravity-wave parameterizations in weather and climate models
• Marginally unstable Holmboe modes
• Flow-driven interfacial waves: an inviscid asymptotic study
• On the nonlinear evolution of wind-driven gravity waves

This page was built for publication: Weakly nonlinear analysis of wind-driven gravity waves

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q4656517)