Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 April 2006
We argue that the universality and statistical nature of the deep-ocean internal gravity-wave spectrum results from a strange attractor in the driven, dissipative internal-wave field. To explore this we construct a model which injects energy into the oceanic surface at a constant rate. A two-dimensional version of the model is explored analytically and numerically. For the numerical work we restrict our considerations to a few of the longest-wavelength modes. This few-mode system exhibits bifurcation into limit cycles, period doubling of the limit cycles, and chaotic, non-periodic behaviour associated with a strange attractor. In an appendix we present some discussion of the three-dimensional version of the model.