A numerical study of rotation effect on the propagation of nonlinear internal solitary waves in the northern South China Sea

In the paper, the rotation effect on the propagation of internal solitary waves (ISWs) in the northern South China Sea (SCS) is studied by applying non-dimensional analysis and a modified two-dimensional regularized long wave equation model. First, the contribution of each term in the model equation with rotation effect is estimated. It is shown that, the rotation effect is important once the scale of the propagating ISWs is larger than 100 km. Then, the model equation is differentiated and set up for the numerical simulation of ISWs in the northern SCS. Several numerical experiments are designed, and it is found that, the rotation effect mainly affects the symmetry of the ISW crestline, the amplitudes of the leading ISW and the north/south-ward extension crestline. With the rotation effect, the ISW crestline is not symmetrical, and the ISW amplitude decreases faster. For an incident depression internal soliton with an amplitude larger than 60 m, after the leading ISW propagates a distance of 330 km, the length of ISW crestline gets larger than 150 km, the contribution of rotation effect on the variation of leading ISW amplitude can reach more than 8%; the rotation effect and the bottom topographic effect on the variation of ISW amplitudes are opposite. The contribution of rotation effect on the variation of leading ISW amplitude decreases with an increase in amplitude of incident soliton, but it increases with the extension distance from the center of ISW crestline for the northern/southern crestlines of propagating ISWs.