Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters

• Main Authors: Scott, Nicholas V., Hara, Tetsu, Hwang, Paul A., Walsh, Edward J.
• Other Authors: NAVAL RESEARCH LAB STENNIS SPACE CENTER MS OCEANOGRAPHY DIV
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; *OCEAN WAVES; *OBSERVATION; *STATISTICS; SURFACE WAVES; TOPOGRAPHY; WAVE PROPAGATION; BROADBAND; SLOPE; AMPLITUDE; WAVELET TRANSFORMS; STEEP WAVES; SLOPE THRESHOLDS; BREAKING WAVE STATISTICS; WAVELET ANALYSIS; BREAKING WAVES; NONLINEARITY; SOWEX(SOUTHERN OCEAN WAVE EXPERIMENT); PE61153N; 73-8190-04-5; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA442938; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA442938

Breaking waves are a ubiquitous phenomenon of the world's oceans. They disrupt the aqueous boundary layer causing surface renewal, thereby enhancing the diffusion of gases and heat across the air-sea interface. Breaking waves are also responsible for the dissipation of wave energy and thus directly affect the evolution of the wind-wave spectrum. With advances in technology, new direct observations of the two-dimensional spatial surface wave topography have been made. These data allow for the opportunity to go beyond linear analysis and study the nonlinearity of the surface wave field, in particular the statistics of steep and breaking waves. Presented at the Conference on Interactions of the Sea and Atmosphere (13th) held in Portland, ME on 9-13 Aug 2004. Sponsored in party by the National Science Foundation Grant No. OCE0002314. Prepared in collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, Univ. of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI and NASA/Goddard Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, Wallops Island, VA.