2013 Articles
Wave breaking in developing and mature seas
In response to the growing need for robust validation data for Phillips (1985) breaking wave spectral framework, we contribute new field results observed from R/P FLIP for the breaking crest length distributions, Λ, during two different wind-wave conditions, and breaking strength during one wind-wave condition. The first experiment in Santa Barbara Channel had developing seas and the second experiment in the central Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii had mature seas. These are among the first experiments to use dissipation rate measurements probing up into the breaking crest together with simultaneous measurements of breaking crest length distributions. We directly measured the effective breaking strength parameter to be inline image in mature seas with wave age, inline image, of 40–47. We also found that the velocity scale of the breaking dissipation rate peak decreases with increasing wave age. Further, the breaking crest length spectrum falls off slower than the inline image behavior predicted by Phillips (1985). The integrated dissipation rate was consistently higher for mature seas compared to developing seas due to higher energy and momentum fluxes from the wind.
Geographic Areas
Subjects
Files
- Gemmrich_et_al-2013-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research-_Oceans.pdf application/pdf 690 KB Download File
Also Published In
- Title
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrc.20334
More About This Work
- Academic Units
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
- Ocean and Climate Physics
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union
- Published Here
- February 22, 2016