| Abstract: | We revisit the classical problem of internal wave propagation in a stratified fluid layer bounded by rigid walls and point out a mechanism by which unsteady locally confined disturbances generate far-field shelves. Carrying the standard expansion procedure to fourth order in the wave amplitude reveals that weakly nonlinear long waves of a certain mode shed, in general, lower- and higher-mode shelves, which propagate upstream and downstream with the corresponding long-wave speeds. This phenomenon is brought about by the combined effect of nonlinear interactions and the presence of transience in the main disturbance. While the shelves accompanying small-amplitude waves are relatively weak, numerical solutions of the full Euler equations indicate that shelves induced by unsteady disturbances of finite amplitude close to breaking can be quite significant. |
