Instability of exact finite-amplitude acoustic-gravity waves

Abstract

Godin (\textit{J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 767, 2015, pp. 52--64) showed that compressible fluids in a uniform gravity field support finite-amplitude incompressible wave motions, in which every parcel conserves pressure and density, and constructed exact Gerstner-type surface and edge waves, possibly carried by currents. Using the short-wavelength instability method for compressible flows, we show that these waves are linearly unstable above a critical steepness. The stability of each fluid level reduces to a Floquet problem depending on two parameters: the steepness $\mathfrak{e}=e^{ka_2}$ and $ν^2=(1-\mathfrak{e}^2)ν_0^2$, where $ν_0^2=\cos^2α\,N_0^2/Ω^2$, $N_0$ is the buoyancy frequency of the hydrostatic reference state, $α$ the inclination of the plane of motion and $Ω=(gk\cosα)^{1/2}$ the intrinsic orbital frequency. In an isentropic fluid, a level is unstable if $\mathfrak{e}>1/3$, recovering Leblanc's threshold for Gerstner waves (\textit{J. Fluid Mech.}, vol. 506, 2004, pp. 245--254) and extending it to compressible surface and edge waves; weak stable stratification lowers the threshold to $\frac13-\frac{32}{81}ν_0^2+O(ν_0^4)$. In an isothermal atmosphere, $ν_0^2=κ\cosα/(kH)$, where $H$ is the pressure scale height. For horizontal wavelengths near $5.5\,H/\cosα$, principal subharmonic resonance makes the critical steepness vanish. For the fast airglow wave observed by Hecht et al. (\textit{J. Geophys. Res.}, vol. 107, 2002, D20, 4444), which Godin interpreted with his solution, the lidar temperature places the layer in which this interpretation is consistent on this resonance, where the critical steepness is typically 0.1 instead of $1/3$. Instability is confined to a layer beneath the free surface of surface waves and to a wedge at the shoreline of edge waves.