Paper detail

Modified Stokes drift due to surface waves and corrugated sea-floor interactions with and without a mean current

In this paper, we show that Stokes drift may be significantly affected when an incident intermediate or shallow water surface wave travels over a corrugated sea-floor. The underlying mechanism is Bragg resonance -- reflected waves generated via nonlinear resonant interactions between an incident wave and a rippled bottom. We theoretically explain the fundamental effect of two counter-propagating Stokes waves on Stokes drift and then perform numerical simulations of Bragg resonance using High-order Spectral method. A monochromatic incident wave on interaction with a patch of bottom ripple yields a complex interference between the incident and reflected waves. When the velocity induced by the reflected waves exceeds that of the incident, particle trajectories reverse, leading to a backward drift. Lagrangian and Lagrangian-mean trajectories reveal that surface particles near the up-wave side of the patch are either trapped or reflected, implying that the rippled patch acts as a non-surface-invasive particle trap or reflector. On increasing the length and amplitude of the rippled patch; reflection, and thus the effectiveness of the patch, increases. The inclusion of realistic constant current shows noticeable differences between Lagrangian-mean trajectories with and without the rippled patch. Theoretical analysis reveals additional terms in the Stokes drift arising from the particular solution due to mean-current--bottom-ripple interactions, irrespective of whether Bragg resonance condition is met. Our analyses may be useful for designing artificial, corrugated sea-floor patches for mitigating microplastics and other forms of ocean pollution. We also expect that sea-floor corrugations, especially in the nearshore region, may significantly affect oceanic tracer transport.