Observations and characterizations of non-linear internal waves on the Mid-Atlantic Bight continental shelf

• Main Author: Taube, Donald W.
• Other Authors: Chiu, Ching-Sang
• Language: en_US
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/8758

During the summer of 1995, an intensive, joint field study called Shallow Water Acoustics in a Random Medium (SWARM 95) was conducted by the Naval Research Laboratories (NRL), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), University of Delaware (UD), Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University (APL/JHU) and Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), among others, in the Mid-Atlantic Bight continental shelf region off the coast of New Jersey. Environmental and acoustic sensors were deployed as part of SWARM '95 to measure and characterize the non-linear internal waves and their impact on the spatial and temporal coherence of the acoustic transmissions. As part of the environmental monitoring network, two bottom-moored, upward looking Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) were deployed. A modal, time-series analysis of the data captured by the two ADCPs was performed. Highlights of the results reveal that: the generation mechanism, in this case, is consistent with the lee- wave hypothesis of generation; the phase speed is in good agreement with predicted phase speeds of the first baroclinic mode; and, the displacement power spectral density is significantly modified when soliton wavepackets are present.