High-Frequency Nonlinear Internal Waves Around The Philippines

Abstract

A study of satellite imagery over the Philippines undertaken as part of the US Office of Naval Research Philippine Straits Experiment (PhilEx) found significant high-frequency nonlinear internal wave activity in the waters around the Philippine Archipelago. Along with previously known nonlinear internal wave occurrence in the Sulu Sea and the Sulu Archipelago, the study found new areas of activity near Surigao Strait, within Butuan and Macajalar Bays along the northern coast of Mindanao in the southeastern Bohol Sea, in the Samar Sea, and at the shelf break at the northern end of the Sulu Sea between Palawan and Panay islands. Signatures in the imagery show that the surface expression of internal waves around the Philippines span a considerable spatial scale, from large solitary waves in the Sulu Sea (10-km scale) to very fine (10-m scale) wave packets found in Butuan Bay. This paper presents examples and discusses the characteristics of the nonlinear internal wave signatures observed in synthetic aperture radar and optical sunglint satellite imagery from around the Philippines