The Southern Ocean (SO) is home to some of the strongest of the world’s ocean currents.
Recent observations and numerical experiments suggest that a fraction of the energy of SO currents is converted into internal lee waves (ILW) close to bottom topography.
ILW breaking induces large scale motions through momentum deposition, which are bottom-trapped inertial oscillations (IO).
These IOs trigger in turn ILW breaking thereby reinforcing the IO field.
We shall investigate the vertical structure of the IO field, which controls the intensity of ILW breaking.
Using two-dimensional numerical experiments, I shall address the response of ILW breaking in terms of dissipation rate of energy, focusing on the magnitude and spatial variability of this dissipation rate in comparison with field campaigns.
