The 250-km-wide Luzon Strait divides the Philippine island of Luzon from Taiwan to the north. To the east of the strait lies the Pacific Ocean; to the west, the South China Sea. When tides drive water back and forth through the strait, the sloshing of the vertically stratified water generates internal gravity waves. Of all the internal waves in Earth’s oceans, the ones that propagate westward through the shallow South China Sea are the largest. Now, thanks to a marine field campaign that involved measurements from ships, autonomous underwater vehicles, buoys, and spacecraft, those waves have been comprehensively characterized. Known as the Internal Waves in Straits Experiment (IWISE), the 25-institution campaign began as a pilot in 2010 and ran in earnest in 2011. Analysis of the data gathered, combined with numerical modeling, has revealed that internal tides in the Luzon Strait generate 24 GW of wave power, of which 60%...

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