On the concentration of near-inertial waves in anticyclones

Abstract

An overlooked conservation law for near-inertial waves propagating in a steady background flow provides a new perspective on the concentration of these waves in regions of anticyclonic vorticity. The conservation law implies that this concentration is a direct consequence of the decrease in spatial scales experienced by an initially homogeneous wave field. Scaling arguments and numerical simulations of a reduced-gravity model of mixed-layer near-inertial waves confirm this interpretation and elucidate the influence of the strength of the background flow relative to the dispersion.