Data from: Fate of internal waves on a shallow shelf

Internal waves strongly influence the physical and chemical environment of coastal ecosystems worldwide. We report novel observations from a distributed temperature sensing (DTS) system that tracked the transformation of internal waves from the shelf break to the surf zone over a narrow shelf-slope region in the South China Sea. The spatially-continuous view of temperature fields provides a perspective of physical processes commonly available only in laboratory settings or numerical models, including internal wave reflection off a natural slope, shoreward transport of dense fluid within trapped cores, and observations of internal run-down (near-bed, offshore-directed jets of water preceding a breaking internal wave). Analysis shows that the fate of internal waves on this shelf – whether transmitted into shallow waters or reflected back offshore – is mediated by local water column density structure and background currents set by the previous shoaling internal waves, highlighting the importance of wave-wave interactions in nearshore internal wave dynamics.