Boiling Water in the Strait of Gibraltar

直布罗陀海峡对地中海和大西洋的环境影响很大。它还为形成从地中海向大西洋供应营养丰富的咸水的全球海洋环流作出了重要贡献。强烈的潮汐强迫叠加在平均流上，对海峡的动力学起着基础性的作用。本研究将探讨高斜压模式在直布罗陀海峡斜压潮汐动力学中的作用。不同的研究人员最近在试图描述“沸水”的影响时得到了相互矛盾的结果，这引发了对观测数据解释的激烈辩论。这场辩论是本研究的强烈动机。该提案的目的是通过将先进的斜压潮汐数值模型应用于直布罗陀海峡，填补在理解产生强非线性斜压潮汐的物理过程方面的空白，西班牙加迪斯大学为此收集了独特的观测数据。这一基本目标的实现将有助于理解正压潮汐通量到内波的能量级联，以及当观测到的内波幅度达到100米时，在极强斜压潮汐活动条件下进一步向较短的孤立波和湍流转化。

The Strait of Gibraltar has great impact on the environment of the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. It also makes an important contribution to the formation of the global oceanic circulation supplying nutrient-rich salty waters from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. A strong tidal forcing is superimposed on the mean current and plays a fundamental role in the dynamics of the Strait. The present study will examine the role of high baroclinic modes in baroclinic tidal dynamics of the Strait of Gibraltar. Contradictory results obtained recently by different researchers in their attempts to describe the effect of 'boiling water' give rise to a hard debate over the interpretation of observational data. This debate was a strong motivation for the present study. The proposal is aimed to fill the gap in understanding of physical processes of generation of strongly-nonlinear baroclinic tides through the application of advanced numerical baroclinic tidal model to the Strait of Gibraltar, for which unique observational data were collected by the University of Cadiz (Spain). The achievement of the basic goal will lead to an understanding of the energy cascading from the barotropic tidal flux to internal waves, and further transformation to shorter solitary waves and turbulence in the conditions of extremely strong baroclinic tidal activity when observed amplitudes of internal waves reach record value of one hundred metres.