Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 71 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The internal-wave ray tracing equations preserve the horizontal wavenumber and laboratory frequency. For the increasing wind, the upward branch satisfiesThe group-velocity ratio therefore givesIntegrating from yieldsThis is the ascending branch of the circular mountain-wave ray in linear shear:It reaches at , where the energy direction is horizontal. After reflection, and the ray continues downwind and downward along the other branchreturning to at . The last panel of the figure in part (b) shows this path. These are WKB energy rays, with the short neighborhood of the turning height supplied by its transition solution.