Paper detail

Internal wave boluses as coherent structures in a continuously stratified fluid

Internal waves shoaling on the continental slope can break and form materially coherent vortices called boluses. These boluses are able to trap and transport material up the continental slope, yet the global extent of bolus transport is unknown. Previous studies of bolus formation primarily focused on systems consisting of two layers of uniform density, which do not account for the presence of ocean pycnoclines of finite thickness. We use hyperbolic tangent profiles to model the density stratification in our simulations and demonstrate the impact of the pycnocline on the bolus. A spectral clustering method is used to objectively identify the bolus as a Lagrangian coherent structure that contains the material advected upslope. The bolus size and displacement upslope are examined as a function of the pycnocline thickness, incoming wave energy, density change across the pycnocline, and topographic slope. The dependence of bolus transport on the pycnocline thickness demonstrates that boluses in continuous stratifications tend to be larger and transport material further than in corresponding two-layer stratifications.