Limiting forms of internal solitary waves

High sensitivity of nonlinear wave structures in the weakly stratified fluid with respect to small perturbations of density in the upstream flow was pointed out by Benney and Ko, Stud. Appl. Math., 59(3), pp. 187-199. In the present paper the influence of fine scale stratification on one of the limiting forms, namely the plateau-shaped solitary waves, is analyzed. It is demonstrated that new limiting forms of solitary waves are possible in the case of continuous stratification close to a linear or an exponential one. [DOI: 10.1115/1.1537730].