Internal solitons shoaling and breaking
along a continental slope.

Thiem, Ø.

EGU, General Assembly 2006.
Vienna, Austria, 2006, April 02-07, oral presentation.

Abstract:
Measurements in the Ormen Lange area, at the continental shelf slope
outside mid Norway, have revealed several occurrences of high speeds
near the seabed often connected to temperature or salinity variations.

Bergen Ocean Model (BOM) has been set up to investigate if internal 
waves or internal solitons can lead to the measured events. Since 
these kind of waves exists in all oceans and can propagate for hundreds
of kilometers without significantly loosing the amplitude, the 
generation area does not need to be located close to where the shoaling 
occurs.

The numerical results show that the shoaling of internal waves or 
solitons along a shelf slope can lead to breaking and generation of 
boluses that can propagate up the slope. During these events the maximum 
horizontal velocity of the wave can be intensified up to almost 10 times. 
The results also show that the maximum velocity during a breaking and run 
up event depends on the amplitude of the wave and the steepness of the 
slope. The combination of a gentle slope and a internal wave with big 
amplitude leads to the highest velocities. These velocities is shown that 
can exceed 1.0 m/s when the internal wave or the internal soliton have an 
amplitude of 100 m and the slope is 0.05.

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