Weakly non-linear analysis of wind-driven gravity waves

Abstract

We study the weakly non-linear development of shear-driven gravity waves, and investigate the mixing properties of the finite amplitude solutions. Calculations to date have been restricted to the linear theory, which predicts that gravity waves are amplified by an influx of energy through the critical layer, where the velocity of the wind equals the wave phase velocity. Because of the presence of a critical layer, ordinary weakly non-linear methods fail; in this paper, we use a rescaling at the critical layer and matched asymptotics to derive an amplitude equation for the most unstable wave, under the simplifying assumption that the physical domain is periodic. These amplitude equations are solved numerically, in their quasi-steady limit, for the cases of small density ratio (applicable to oceanography), and for arbitrary density ratio but strong stratification (for more general physical/astrophysical situations). In addition to the familiar asymptotic growth found in other inviscid flow, we find that, for the air over water case (provided the maximum wind velocity is in the range of $0.2\mpers \sim 1\mpers$), the single mode transitions from exponential to algebraic growth when the amplitude of the wave is as small as $h\sim 10^{-5}λ$; hence, it may be difficult to observe the linear regime for this case in numerical simulations. We also find that the weakly non-linear flow allows for super-diffusive particle transport with an exponent $\sim 3/2$, consistent with Venkataramani's results.