Steady flow past an island with applications to Bermuda

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Abstract
Temperature and salinity data from the vicinity of Bermuda reveal large vertical displacements of the isopycnals of over 100 m close to the island. A model based on the steady flow of an inviscid, stratified ocean past a circularily symmetric island on a rotating plane gives good qualitative agreement. The effects of island slope and nonlinearities are accounted for in a perturbation procedure. In an anomalous area over the left slope of the island (looking downstream) large steps were observed in the temperature and salinity profiles. The theoretical flow is shown to have a minimum Richardson number in this region. In a quasi-empirical manner it is possible to compute a Richardson number profile from the observed density data. This procedure gives values very close to that needed for instability to be possible suggesting that instabilities promote mixing and the development of the observed layers.

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