Kelvin Waves

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B Wang
University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA
doi:10.1006/rwas.2002.0191

Introduction
"The Kelvin wave is a large-scale wave motion of great
practical importance in the Earth’s atmosphere and
ocean. Discovered by Sir William Thompson (who
later became Lord Kelvin) in 1879, the Kelvin wave is a
special type of gravity wave that is affected by the
Earth’s rotation and trapped at the Equator or along
lateral vertical boundaries such as coastlines or
mountain ranges. The existence of the Kelvin wave
relies on (a) gravity and stable stratification for
sustaining a gravitational oscillation, (b) significant
Coriolis acceleration, and (c) the presence of vertical
boundaries or the equator."

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Figure 1.

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Figure 2.




Huge Wave in Pacific Ocean About to Hit West Coast Will Have Global Impacts
Fri Mar 28, 2014 at 03:39 PM PDT

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The proof of the similarity between figure 1
and figure 2 is the motion of the anomaly in
figure 2. The anomaly is moving in the orbital
direction. If it moved with the Earth's rotation
it would move to the west.

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Internal Kelvin Waves
ibid @ paragraph 35

"The internal Kelvin wave speed depends on the density
difference across the interface and is normally much
slower than that of surface Kelvin waves. In the ocean,
the typical speed for internal coastal Kelvin waves is of
the order of 1 m/s-1 and the Rossby radius of
deformation is of the order of 10 km in the mid-
latitudes."

The wave in figure 2 is moving at about 2 m/s
The longitude of the moon moves at about 6 m/s
Evidently a Kelvin wave moves at 2 to 2.8 m/s
http://faculty.washington.edu/luanne/pa ... kelvin.pdf