A new method to estimate phase speed and vertical velocity of internal solitary waves in the South China Sea
A new method of estimating the phase speed and vertical velocity of internal solitary waves (ISW) based on dynamic governing equations using Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) data was developed. This method was applied to a representative ISW case, which was captured in the South China Sea in the 2007 summer experiment. The result shows that this ISW had a phase speed of approximately 2.6 m s 1. This method provides an excellent alternative in estimating the phase speed of ISWs, especially useful in the absence of vertical stratification needed in solving the Korteweg de Vries (KdV) type equation, e.g. long term mooring observation. Analyses show that the new method is fairly self consistent, and it can be applied when only a part of the ISW observations is available. The computed vertical velocity of the ISW using the new method has a good agreement with the ADCP observations both in magnitude and pattern.
Journal of Oceanography