Viscous attenuation of an internal gravity wave

ID: viscous-attenuation-of-an-internal-gravity-wave

With weak kinematic viscosity , zero buoyancy diffusion and locally unchanged plane internal gravity wave polarization, the displacement pseudomomentum of an internal gravity wave obeys . For constant wavenumbers and a stationary wave envelope, proves the displayed amplitude decay. Decay is along the group velocity, so describes a source above the receiving level. In a slowly varying shear flow, use wave action and the changing intrinsic frequency rather than treating as constant.

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