Spectral variability in high frequency in sea level and atmospheric pressure on Buenos Aires Coast, Argentina

Abstract

There are some observational evidences which support that atmospheric gravity waves constitute an efficient forcing for meteorological tsunamis (meteotsunamis) along the coast of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Meteotsunamis and atmospheric gravity waves, which propagate simultaneously on the sea surface and the atmosphere, respectively, are typical examples of non-stationary geophysical signals. The variability of meteotsunamis and atmospheric gravity waves recorded at Mar del Plata was investigated in this paper. Results obtained in this work reinforce the idea of a cause (atmospheric gravity waves) effect (meteotsunami) relationship, because wavelet spectra obtained from both signals resulted quite similar. However, several very short episodes of mod-erate/low activity of atmospheric gravity waves were detected without detecting meteotsunami activity. On the other hand, it was found that atmospheric gravity wave spectral energy can appear in the wavelets as a single or multiple burst as relatively long and irregular events or as regular wave packets. Results obtained in this paper provide original spectral data about atmospheric gravity waves along the coast of Buenos Aires. This information is useful to be included in realistic numerical models in order to investigate the genesis of this complex atmosphere-ocean interaction.