Approximation of the Garrett–Munk internal wave spectrum

The spectral models of Garrett and Munk (1972, 1975) continue to be a useful description of the oceanic energy spectrum. However, there are several ambiguities (many of them are summarized, for example, in Levine, 2002) that make it difficult to use e.g., in a dissipation modeling (e.g., Hibiya et al., 1996, and Winters and DʼAsaro, 1997). An approximate spectral formulation is presented in this work by means of the modified Running Median Methods.

► Proposes new form of approximation of Garrett and Munk energy spectrum in the ocean. ► Proposes new smoothing procedure – running median method with varying length window. ► Resonant triad simulator is adjusted to utilize the GM spectral formulation.