Infragravity waves across the oceans

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Rawat, Arshad, Ardhuin, Fabrice, Ballu, Valerie, Crawford, Wayne C., Corela, Carlos, Aucan, Jerôme
• Other Authors: Mauritius Oceanography Institute, Laboratoire d’Oéanographie Spatiale Plouzané (LOS), Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Laboratoire de physique des océans (LPO), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), LIttoral ENvironnement et Sociétés - UMRi 7266 (LIENSs), Université de La Rochelle (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-IPG PARIS-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Université de La Réunion (UR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa (ULISBOA), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD Nouvelle-Calédonie )
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; Pacific; Ice Shelf; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01126782; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01126782/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01126782/file/Rawat_et_al-2014-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL061604

International audience Ocean infragravity (IG) waves are low-frequency waves generated along shorelines by incident seas and swell and with heights of the order of 1 cm in the open ocean. Despite these small amplitudes, they can be of much importance for ice shelf break up and errors in measurements of sea level by future satellite altimeters. A combination of numerical model results and in situ data is used to show that bottom pressure signals in the infragravity frequency band can be dominated by bursts of energy that travel across ocean basins, and can last for several days. Two particularly strong events recorded in 2008 are studied, one in the North-Pacific and the other in the North-Atlantic. It is shown that infragravity waves can travel across whole oceans basins with the signal recorded on the western shores often dominated by IG waves coming from the opposite shore of that same ocean basin.