Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters
A new wavelet analysis methodology is proposed to estimate the statistics of steep waves. The method is applied to open ocean wave height data from the Southern Ocean Waves Experiment (1992) and from a field experiment conducted at Duck, North Carolina (1997). Results show that high wave slope crest...
Published in: | Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
DigitalCommons@URI
2005
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/328 https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH1702.1 https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/gsofacpubs/article/1385/viewcontent/Scott_etal_ObservationsSteep_2005.pdf |
id |
ftunivrhodeislan:oai:digitalcommons.uri.edu:gsofacpubs-1385 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivrhodeislan:oai:digitalcommons.uri.edu:gsofacpubs-1385 2024-09-15T18:37:14+00:00 Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters Scott, Nicholas Hara, Tetsu Walsh, Edward J. Hwang, Paul A. 2005-01-01T08:00:00Z application/pdf https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/328 https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH1702.1 https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/gsofacpubs/article/1385/viewcontent/Scott_etal_ObservationsSteep_2005.pdf unknown DigitalCommons@URI https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/328 doi:10.1175/JTECH1702.1 https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/gsofacpubs/article/1385/viewcontent/Scott_etal_ObservationsSteep_2005.pdf Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications text 2005 ftunivrhodeislan https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH1702.1 2024-08-21T00:09:33Z A new wavelet analysis methodology is proposed to estimate the statistics of steep waves. The method is applied to open ocean wave height data from the Southern Ocean Waves Experiment (1992) and from a field experiment conducted at Duck, North Carolina (1997). Results show that high wave slope crests appear over a wide range of wavenumbers, with a large amount being much shorter than the dominant wave. At low wave slope thresholds, all wave fields have roughly the same amount of wave crests regardless of wind forcing. The steep wave statistic decays exponentially with the square of the wave slope threshold, with a decay rate that is larger for the low wind cases than the high wind cases. Comparison of the steep wave statistic with independent measurements of the breaking wave statistic suggests a breaking wave slope threshold of about 0.12. The steep wave statistic does not scale with the cube of the wind speed, suggesting that other factors besides the wind speed also affect its level. Comparison of the steep wave statistic to the saturation spectrum reveals a reasonable correlation at moderate wave slope thresholds. Text Southern Ocean University of Rhode Island: DigitalCommons@URI Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 22 3 258 271 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Rhode Island: DigitalCommons@URI |
op_collection_id |
ftunivrhodeislan |
language |
unknown |
description |
A new wavelet analysis methodology is proposed to estimate the statistics of steep waves. The method is applied to open ocean wave height data from the Southern Ocean Waves Experiment (1992) and from a field experiment conducted at Duck, North Carolina (1997). Results show that high wave slope crests appear over a wide range of wavenumbers, with a large amount being much shorter than the dominant wave. At low wave slope thresholds, all wave fields have roughly the same amount of wave crests regardless of wind forcing. The steep wave statistic decays exponentially with the square of the wave slope threshold, with a decay rate that is larger for the low wind cases than the high wind cases. Comparison of the steep wave statistic with independent measurements of the breaking wave statistic suggests a breaking wave slope threshold of about 0.12. The steep wave statistic does not scale with the cube of the wind speed, suggesting that other factors besides the wind speed also affect its level. Comparison of the steep wave statistic to the saturation spectrum reveals a reasonable correlation at moderate wave slope thresholds. |
format |
Text |
author |
Scott, Nicholas Hara, Tetsu Walsh, Edward J. Hwang, Paul A. |
spellingShingle |
Scott, Nicholas Hara, Tetsu Walsh, Edward J. Hwang, Paul A. Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
author_facet |
Scott, Nicholas Hara, Tetsu Walsh, Edward J. Hwang, Paul A. |
author_sort |
Scott, Nicholas |
title |
Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
title_short |
Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
title_full |
Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
title_fullStr |
Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
title_full_unstemmed |
Observations of Steep Wave Statistics in Open Ocean Waters |
title_sort |
observations of steep wave statistics in open ocean waters |
publisher |
DigitalCommons@URI |
publishDate |
2005 |
url |
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/328 https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH1702.1 https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/gsofacpubs/article/1385/viewcontent/Scott_etal_ObservationsSteep_2005.pdf |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications |
op_relation |
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/328 doi:10.1175/JTECH1702.1 https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/context/gsofacpubs/article/1385/viewcontent/Scott_etal_ObservationsSteep_2005.pdf |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH1702.1 |
container_title |
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology |
container_volume |
22 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
258 |
op_container_end_page |
271 |
_version_ |
1810481583781576704 |