Distribution of Surface Wave Breaking Fronts
Abstract
This study describes a model of Phillips' Λ(c) distribution, which is the expected length of breaking fronts (per unit surface area) moving with velocity c to c+dc, providing a framework for coupled atmosphere‐wave‐ocean models to explicitly account for wave breaking related air‐sea fluxes. The model of Λ depends on the spectral saturation, based on Gaussian statistics of the lengths of crest exceeding wave slope criteria, and long wave‐short wave modulation. A wave breaking dissipation function based on Λ was implemented in the model WaveWatchIII. The wave solutions are consistent with the observations, including several metrics of the spectrum and Λ(c) distributions. The whitecap coverage derived from Λ reproduces recent parameterizations saturating at high winds. The wave breaking variability due to wave‐current interaction is significant at submesoscales (order 1 km or smaller). The wave breaking model can be further developed to model gas transfer coefficients and aerosol production.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1029/2019gl083408
Entities
People
- Leonel Romero
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- University of California