ESS228
Prof. Jin-Yi Yu
Equivalent
Depth (He)
•An N-layer fluid will have one barotropic mode and (N-1)
baroclinic modes of gravity waves,
each of which has its own equivalent
depth.
•Once the equivalent depth is known, we know the
dispersion relation of that mode
of gravity wave and we know how fast/slow
that gravity wave propagates.
•For a continuously stratified fluid, it has an infinite
number of modes, but not all the
modes are imporptant. We only need to identify the major baroclinic modes and to find out
their equivalent depths.
