The trapping of short-period gravity waves by islands and seamounts has been studied by Chambers (1965) and by Longuet-Higgins (1967). It was shown by the latter that in the absence of rotation, or when the wave frequency σ is large compared with the Coriolis parameter f, these waves cannot be perfectly trapped; some energy must always leak away to infinity. Very long-period oscillations in the presence of a sloping shelf surrounding an island, with σ [Lt ] f, have been studied by Mysak (1967) and Rhines (1967, 1969). Here perfect trapping is possible. However, as pointed out in Longuet-Higgins (1968), the rotation itself exerts a strong trapping effect not only when |σ| [Lt ] f, but also whenever a |σ| < f. It seems not to have been noticed that this effect is capable of trapping waves round an island in an ocean of uniform depth, in the absence of any shelf or sloping region offshore.

The existence of such waves is demonstrated for a circular island in § 1 of the present paper. It is shown that the waves exist only when the azimuthal wave-number n is at least 1. The waves always progress round the island in a clockwise sense in the northern hemisphere. At large distances r from the island, the wave amplitude decays exponentially, but this exponential trapping occurs only if the radius a of the island exceeds the critical value (n(n − 1)gh)½/f. When n = 1, this critical radius is zero, so that in theory the waves exist for any island of non-zero radius.

The application of these results to the ocean is discussed in § 2. Except possibly for baroclinic motions, it appears that only the waves corresponding to n = 1 could exist in fact, and that their frequency would be nearly equal to the inertial frequency f. It is unlikely that f could be regarded as constant over a sufficiently wide area for the model to apply without qualification. Nevertheless, the oscillations may be regarded as the local adjustment of the pressure field to inertial currents in the neighbourhood of the island. It is possible that the peak at about 0·73 c.p.d. in the spectrum of sea-level at Oahu, as found by Miyata & Groves (1968), can be interpreted in this way.