Spatial Statistics of the Sea Surface in Fetch-Limited Conditions

Abstract

AbstractAn analysis of airborne wave observations collected in the Gulf of Tehuantepec is presented. The data include lidar measurements of the surface displacement as a function of two horizontal dimensions in fetch-limited conditions, with fetches between 20 and 500 km and winds between 10 and 20 m s−1. The spatial data have an advantage over the commonly used single-point time series measurements, allowing direct estimates of the wavelength and wave slope, including spatial information such as the lengths of crests exceeding various thresholds. This study presents an analysis of several statistical wind wave parameters, including the joint probability distribution function (pdf) of wave amplitudes and wavelengths; the pdf of wave heights, wavenumber vectors, and wave slopes; as well as the statistics of the lengths of crests exceeding threshold wave heights and slopes. The empirical findings from the lidar data are compared against analytical theories in the literature, including some that had not been tested previously with field data such as the work by M. S. Longuet-Higgins describing the length of contours surrounding large wave heights per unit surface area. The effect of second-order nonlinearities on the distribution of crest lengths per unit surface area is investigated with analytical approximations and stochastic numerical simulations from computed directional wavenumber spectra. The results show that second-order nonlinearities can increase the crest-length distribution of large waves by a factor of 2 or more.