Semiempirical Dissipation Source Functions for Ocean Waves. Part I: Definition, Calibration, and Validation

Abstract New parameterizations for the spectral dissipation of wind-generated waves are proposed. The rates of dissipation have no predetermined spectral shapes and are functions of the wave spectrum and wind speed and direction, in a way consistent with observations of wave breaking and swell dissipation properties. Namely, the swell dissipation is nonlinear and proportional to the swell steepness, and dissipation due to wave breaking is nonzero only when a nondimensional spectrum exceeds the threshold at which waves are observed to start breaking. An additional source of short-wave dissipation is introduced to represent the dissipation of short waves due to longer breaking waves. A reduction of the wind-wave generation of short waves is meant to account for the momentum flux absorbed by longer waves. These parameterizations are combined and calibrated with the discrete interaction approximation for the nonlinear interactions. Parameters are adjusted to reproduce observed shapes of directional wave spect...

• Publication year

  2009

• Venue

  Journal of Physical Oceanography

• Publication date

  2009-07-24

• Fields of study

  Geography, Physics, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1175/2010JPO4324.1arXiv 0907.4240
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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