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Next, let's try half submerging a round stick
held horizontally in the water, and moving it from right to left. Near the water's surface, the waves
are almost vertical. In other words, waves that have
a cycle close the Brunt-Väisälä frequency occur.
The group velocity of these waves is zero, so they
don't travel far from where the "mountain"
(round stick) passes. Waves that transmit to the
depths have a much longer cycle. For the sake of
simplicity in this experiment, we moved the
half-submerged round stick on the surface of the
water, however we would have obtained the same result
if we had taken a half-cylindrical stick and moved it
back and forth on the bottom of the water tank. In
other words, we could turn the whole experiment
upside-down and map the movement of the water with a
coordinate map that moves with the half-cylindrical
stick to see the waves that occur on
the leeward side of
mountains
in the atmosphere. These waves are called lee
waves.
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