Coastal-trapped and frontal-trapped waves in a baroclinic Western boundary current.

Four types of stable, subinertial Rossby-like waves have been found to propagate alongshore in a model baroclinic boundary. The two-layer model incorporates a general bottom topography with continental shelf and slope, and a thermal-wind mean current confined to the upper layer. The four wave components are the familiar continental shelf wave, the quasi-geostrophic edge wave and complementary mode edge wave, plus a new frontal-trapped wave, which has wave amplitude maxima within the cyclonic side of the stream. The cases studied show the phase speeds of the various components to be affected by the location of the surface density front, the width of the continental shelf, and whether the inshore boundary is a vertical wall or a sloping beach