ABSTRACT
Continental shelf waves are coastally trapped waves that arise from the interaction of Coriolis forces with depth changes. They propagate with the coastline on the right or left in the Northern or Southern Hemispheres respectively but their group velocity may be forward (longer waves) or backward (shorter waves). They are conveniently modelled by taking the normal component of the Earth’s rotation to be constant (the β-plane approximation) and regarding the ocean as a large body of rotating shallow water.
