Small‐scale physics of the ocean

The last quadrennial report combined internal waves with finestructure and microstructure, although the subjects were discussed separately within the review because “the direct linkage in the literature is not yet very strong” [Gregg and Briscoe, 1979]. The authors clearly expected, or at least hoped, that the connection would become stronger in the next four years. They pointed out that “there is at least a zeroth order steady state level for the internal wave field,” but that the rate of energy transfer into internal waves, and out of them into turbulence, was unknown. The intervening years have brought no great amount of progress in connecting internal waves with small‐scale processes, or in determining the rate of energy transmission.