释义 |
seiche Physiogr.|seɪʃ| [a. Swiss Fr. seiche, perh. a graphic adoption of G. seiche, sinking (of water). Not connected, as is usually stated, with F. seiche, sèche, ‘a portion of the sea-bottom left uncovered at low tide’.] A short-lived standing oscillation of a lake or other body of water (as a bay or basin of the sea), somewhat resembling a tide, which may be caused by abrupt changes in atmospheric conditions or by small earth tremors.
1839G. Roberts Dict. Geol., Seiches (Swiss term); an occasional undulation of the water of lakes, like a tide wave, sometimes to the height of five feet, supposed to be caused by the unequal pressure of the atmosphere. 1852Th. Ross Humboldt's Trav. I. i. 24 M. Vaucher thinks that the tides in the lake of Geneva, known by the name of the seiches, arise from the same cause. 1898G. H. Darwin Tides ii. 37 Although, then, it is possible to indicate causes competent to produce seiches, yet we cannot as yet point out the particular cause for any individual seiche. 1905Geogr. Jrnl. XXVI. 46 A seiche was observed..within the shelter of the pier at the east end of Loch a' Chroisg... The amplitude was a quarter of an inch, and the period about 11½ minutes. 1932Geogr. Rev. XXII. 476 The strongest current caused by the seiches was found in the south-east corner of Great Bear Lake. 1957G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. v. 299 The phenomenon has long been recognized locally in the Lake of Geneva, and the term seiche was recorded by Fatio de Duillier (1730) as applied to the oscillation in that lake. 1962New Scientist 13 Sept. 560/1 Wind can also cause whole lakes and bays to oscillate..and these movements, called ‘seiches’, can communicate energy to the ground. 1971Nature 4 June 306/2 The dominant internal seiche has a wavelength twice the length of the Loch, and a marked asymmetry. Hence ˈseiching, the occurrence of a seiche; the motion occurring in a seiche; seiˈchometer [-meter] an instrument for measuring seiches.
1903Nature 23 Apr. 599/2 Sir John Murray..exhibited a seichometer with which he hoped in the coming season to get a more definite and precise record of these oscillations. 1955Sci. Amer. Jan. 2/2 The extreme heights reached by the water in specific locations is due to another phenomenon known to oceanographers as ‘seiching’, which is similar to the sloshing of water in a bathtub. 1967Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. V. 27 In contrast, Corkan..and Rossiter..found..little evidence of North Sea seiching. 1971Nature 4 June 308/1 It is likely that the effect of the Earth's rotation is principally to cause a small alternating transverse tilt of the isotherms across the Loch during the seiching motion. |