Strait of Georgia Oscillations: Low-Frequency Currents and Topographic Planetary Waves

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Abstract
Chang recently showed that up to 46% of the horizontal kinetic energy in the Strait of Georgia (GS), British Columbia, is contained in current oscillations possessing periods exceeding 4 days. In an attempt to explain these findings we study here a class of low-frequency oscillations in a model channel of GS. The Strait is modeled by an infinitely long, rectangular channel with a bottom that slopes upwards to the east; the stratification is idealized by a two-layer system. This model admits northward-traveling, topographic planetary waves with frequencies that lie in the observed range for reasonable values of the wavelength. However, the model does not accurately predict the observed vertical distribution of the horizontal kinetic energy.

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