| We study the dispersion of wind-induced near-inertial oscillations (NIOs) in a fully turbulent baroclinic mesoscale eddy field characterized by a continuous wavenumber spectrum. The influence of the eddy field on the horizontal dispersion of the different NIO modes is analyzed using a vertical normal mode expansion. Previous studies have identified two dispersion regimes: trapping and strong dispersion. We examine the modes in physical and spectral space to assess which regime prevails,Numerical and analytical results show the prevalence of a trapping regime. For each NIO mode, there exists a critical horizontal wavenumber. k(c), that separates large-scale NIO structures, where trapping dominates, from the much less energetic small-scale NIO structures,... |
