Analytical Approximations of Dispersion Relations for Internal Gravity Waves Equation with Shear Flows

Abstract

The problem of internal gravity waves fields in a stratified medium of finite depth is considered for model distributions of background shear currents. For the analytical solution of the problem, a constant distribution of the buoyancy frequency and various linear dependences of the background shear current on depth were used. The dispersion dependences are obtained, which are expressed in terms of the modified Bessel function of the imaginary index. Under the Miles–Howard stability condition and large Richardson numbers, the Debye asymptotics of the modified Bessel function of the imaginary index were used to construct analytical solutions. The dispersion equation is solved using the proposed analytical approximation. The properties of the dispersion equation are studied and the main analytical characteristics of the dispersion curves are investigated depending on the parameters of background shear flows.

Keywords

• internal gravity waves
• stratified medium
• shear flows
• dispersion relations