Based on a nonhydrostatic numerical ocean model developed by one of the authors, the interaction of an internal solitary wave with a step-type topography was investigated. Over the step topography, the flow pattern could be classified into three catego- ries: 1) the propagation and spatial structure of the internal solitary wave was little influenced by the bottom topography, 2) the in- ternal solitary wave was significantly distorted by the blocking effect of the topography without the occurrence of wave breaking and 3) the internal solitary wave was broken as it encountered and passed over the bottom topography. A detailed description of the processes leading to wave breaking is given in this paper together with energy budget analysis. The results revealed that the maxi- mum of the energy dissipation rate is no more than 40%, which is consistent with available experimental data.
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