Short Standing and Propagating Internal Waves in an Ice-Covered Shallow Lake

Abstract

The intensity of vertical heat and mass transfer remains among the challenging topics in the study of ice-covered lakes. Presumably, internal waves (IWs) make a significant contribution to the heat transfer in the water column. However, the mechanisms of mixing enhancement by generation, interaction, and breaking of IWs of different scales, especially short-wavelength ones, have not been sufficiently studied. Furthermore, the experimental data required for estimating the key parameters of IWs (wavelengths, propagation velocities) are rather fragmentary, which makes it difficult to quantify the turbulent transfer caused by IWs. This paper presents the estimates of these IW parameters based on data obtained in the winter months of 2014 and 2016 in a small boreal ice-covered lake. Having analyzed horizontally spaced thermistor chain data, we managed to detect the presence of short standing and propagating IWs, and to estimate their length (from several meters to several tens of meters) and phase and group velocities (from several mm/s to several tens of mm/s). Also, their vertical mode structure was detected. It was shown that IW generation events were characterized by a high degree of spatial localization, and the IW energy was unevenly distributed through the water column.