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SUMMARY:(What's the Story) Internal Solitary Waves? - Bruce Sutherland\, D
 ept of Physics and of Earth &amp\; Atmospheric Sciences\, University of Al
 berta
DTSTART:20120503T103000Z
DTEND:20120503T113000Z
UID:TALK37686@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Catherine Pearson
DESCRIPTION:Internal solitary waves are large-amplitude internal waves usu
 ally characterized in a two-layer fluid as a hump-shaped disturbance whose
  structure does not change as it propagates at speeds faster than the long
 -wave speed.  They are manifest at an atmospheric inversion as Australia's
  Morning Glory and also result in the ocean from tidal forcing of the ther
 mocline at the continental shelves. In laboratory experiments internal sol
 itary waves are usually created by a lock-exchange mechanism similar to th
 at used to create surface gravity currents.  In the latter case\, fresh wa
 ter behind a gate is suddenly released into a uniformly saline ambient whe
 n the gate is vertically extracted.  In the former case\, the ambient is a
  two-layer fluid with fresh overlying salty water.  If the depth of the fr
 esh water layer in the ambient is relatively small\, the resulting flow ex
 hibits characteristics of both gravity currents and solitary waves.   We e
 xamine this behaviour in both rectangular and cylindrical geometries for i
 ntrusions moving along at the interface of an approximately two-layer flui
 d.  In both cases the intrusion is found to propagate at constant speed mu
 ch further from the gate than predicted or observed for surface gravity cu
 rrents because of interactions with solitary waves.  Understanding these d
 ynamics theoretically is particularly challenging in an axisymmetric geome
 try for which self-consistent evolution equations have yet to be developed
 .    This talk will also present recent experiments examining sediment res
 uspension by internal solitary waves shoaling on a slope.
LOCATION:Open Plan Area\, BP Institute\, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ
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