Seasonal Variability of Near-Inertial Internal Waves in the Deep Central Part of the Black Sea

Abstract

This observational study is concerned with the seasonal variability of near-inertial internal waves (NIWs) in the central part of the Black Sea. Rotary spectral analysis of the nearly year-long time series of the sea current velocity measurements at 100 m and 1700 m revealed the prevailing anticyclonic component of the motions near the local inertial frequency f. Both the rotary spectra and the visual exploration of the time series showed that the peaks of NIWs were blue-shifted to higher frequencies. The monthly average blue-shift was stronger up to 1.038f in the summer. It was found that the minimum intensification of the NIWs occurred in summertime and the maximum intensification was characteristic of the autumn-winter period when the NIW packets included up to 16 waves with pronounced clockwise rotation of the velocity vectors.

Keywords

• internal waves
• near-inertial motions
• currents
• Black Sea
• central basin