Internal solitary waves with a weakly stratified critical layer

Motivated by observations of solitary waves in the ocean and atmosphere, this paper considers the evolution of long weakly nonlinear internal waves in an incompressible Boussinesq fluid. The motion is restricted to the vertical plane. The basic state consists of stable horizontal shear flow and density stratification. On a long time scale, the waves evolve and reach a quasi-steady regime where weak nonlinearity and weak dispersion are in balance. In many circumstances, this regime is described by a Korteweg-de-Vries equation. However, when the linear long-wave speed equals the basic flow velocity at a certain height, the critical level, the traditional assumption of weak nonlinearity breaks down due to the appearance of a singularity in the leading-order modal equation, implying a strong modification of the flow in the so-called critical layer. Since the relevant geophysical flows have high Reynolds and Peclet numbers, we invoke nonlinear effects to resolve this singularity. Viscosity and thermal conducti...