Discrimination Between Internal Waves and Temperature Finestructure.

摘要

Discrimination between internal waves and finestructure in the ocean is made difficult because of overlapping scales of each process. A working hypothesis is made that low frequency/wavenumber variability is predominantly wave-like, while high frequency/wavenumber variability is step-like. Thermal finestructure is modeled as a steppy Poisson process in the vertical, while internal waves are modeled as a random Gaussian process. For the data considered, the contamination of moored spectra and cross-spectra is small for low frequencies. The vertical temperature difference, measured over a vertical distance which is small compared to the correlation length of the internal wave field, is shown to provide a critical check of the model, since this signal is directly related to finestructure variability. Thus, it appears possible to use moored differential temperature sensors as monitors of finestructure activity.