Halocline Internal Wave Attractors Visualization

Abstract

The phenomenon of wave attractor, originating from ocean dynamics, in the last couple decades has become widely-studied both laboratorily and numerically. However, their discoveries in wild nature are still rare hence deepwater ones are out of technique, and attractor in smaller basins cannot form because of energy overinjection. In the current work we show that attractor may exist in shallower depths regardless the depth of the basin’s bottom. Basing on the peculiar dispersion relation typical for stratified fluid attractors can be ”trapped” in a narrow halocline layer which may facilitate their detection in the nature. Additionally, we discuss the formed flow structure visualization problems.