Internal Wave Packet Tunnelling Across a Thermohaline Staircase

Explore a one-hour research seminar examining the transmission of internal wave packets across thermohaline staircases in the Arctic Ocean. Delve into Professor Bruce Sutherland's investigation of how density profiles below the thermocline exhibit staircase structures due to double diffusive processes. Learn about the theoretical predictions for wave transmission and reflection, comparing earlier findings of plane incident waves with new numerical simulations of vertically propagating internal wavepackets. Understand how these wavepackets interact with density staircases, revealing a smooth transition between perfect and zero transmission rather than successive transmission spikes. Discover how internal waves excite leaky internal modes of the staircase, leading to wave retransmission above and below the staircase over time, supported by theoretical predictions from the University of Alberta research.