Large amplitude internal wave shoaling and breaking

As part of a team from Kristen Davis’ Coastal Dynamics Lab at the University of California, Irvine, I traveled to Dongsha Atoll to observe some of the largest internal waves in the world. Generated in the Luzon strait, these waves propagate westward until they eventually shoal and break on the steep coral atoll. We used a dense array of moorings, fixed temperature sensors and a Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) system to continuously observe the shoaling and beraking region between 500m and 1m water depth. You can learn more about the project here and results from this experiment here.