Coupling of waves to sea surface currents via horizontal density gradients

TL;DR

This paper develops nonlinear mathematical models and simulations to understand how waves interact with sea surface currents through horizontal density gradients, with potential applications for improved satellite imagery of ocean dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a two-level approximation model for wave-current interactions influenced by buoyancy gradients, highlighting the role of the ponderomotive force in these processes.

Findings

Horizontal buoyancy gradients coordinate with wave envelopes.

The model shows the ponderomotive force influences surface current dynamics.

Potential for enhanced satellite imaging of wave-current interactions.

Abstract

The mathematical models and numerical simulations reported here are motivated by satellite observations of horizontal gradients of sea surface temperature and salinity that are closely coordinated with the slowly varying envelope of the rapidly oscillating waves. This coordination of gradients of fluid material properties with wave envelopes tends to occur when strong horizontal buoyancy gradients are present. The nonlinear models of this coordinated movement presented here may provide future opportunities for the optimal design of satellite imagery that could simultaneously capture the dynamics of both waves and currents directly. The model derived here appears in two levels of approximation: first for rapidly oscillating waves, and then for their slowly varying envelope (SVE) approximation obtained by using the WKB approach. The WKB wave-current-buoyancy interaction model derived here for a free surface with significant horizontal buoyancy gradients indicates that the mechanism for the emergence of these correlations is the ponderomotive force of the slowly varying envelope of rapidly oscillating waves acting on the surface currents via the horizontal buoyancy gradient. In this model, the buoyancy gradient appears explicitly in the WKB wave momentum, which in turn generates density-weighted potential vorticity whenever the buoyancy gradient is not aligned with the wave-envelope gradient.