Internal Solitary Waves within the Cold Tongue of the Equatorial Pacific Generated by Buoyant Gravity Currents
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We present a hypothesis for the generation mechanism of trains of Internal Solitary Waves (ISWs) that are observed in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, within a zonal band from 5 S to 5 N and from 210 to 265 E in longitude. The presence of these ISWs in this region is remarkable given the absence of steep bottom topography and tides that could explain their presence from classical theories, and to date had not been explained. In this study (Santos-Ferreira et al., 2023), we provide estimates and model-based predictions of some ISW characteristics such as their wavelength, crest length, typical amplitude, as well as age. In total, we identified 116 ISW trains during one full year (2020), with an average crest length of 300 km, typical wavelengths of 1500 m, and modelled amplitude of 10 m. The origin of these trains of ISWs is consistent with a generation mechanism that involves buoyant gravity currents with sharp fronts detectable in satellite imagery (visible and thermal infrared from Sentinel-3). The propagation of gravity currents into stably stratified environments is known to generate internal waves but reports of such phenomena in the open ocean are scarce. Here we report indications that such an internal wave generation mechanism is ubiquitous along the equatorial Pacific, and we suggest that ISWs may have been overlooked in many other frontal regions in the deep ocean. Energetic Tropical Instability Waves (TIWs) have been linked to buoyant gravity currents in Warner et al. (2018), which propagate within the equatorial cold tongue that is strongly stratified, hence providing conditions for the propagation of ISWs initiated by the gravity currents. These internal waves provide a physical link between frontal zones of 1000-km scale TIWs with viscous mixing scales. Santos-Ferreira, A. M., da Silva, J.C.B., St-Denis, B., Bourgault, D., & Maas, L. R. M., 2023: Internal solitary waves within the cold tongue of the equatorial pacific generated by buoyant gravity currents. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 53(10), 2419-2434.Warner, S. J., R. M. Holmes, E. H. M. Hawkins, M. Hoecker-Martinez, A. C. Savage, and J. N. Moum, 2018: Buoyant gravity currents released from tropical instability waves. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 48, 361–382, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-17-0144.1.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".