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AGU: Journal of Geophysical Research, Oceans

 

Keywords

  • nonlinear gravity waves
  • sea surface statistics

Index Terms

  • Oceanography: Physical: Hydrodynamic modeling
  • Nonlinear Geophysics: Nonlinear waves, shock waves, solitons
  • Oceanography: General: Analytical modeling and laboratory experiments
  • Oceanography: Physical: Upper ocean and mixed layer processes
  • Oceanography: General: Remote sensing and electromagnetic processes
Abstract
Cited By (3)
 

Abstract

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, C09012, 16 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2008JC004984

“Choppy wave” model for nonlinear gravity waves

Frédéric Nouguier

Institut Fresnel, UMR 6133, Faculté de Saint-Jérôme, Université Paul Cézanne, CNRS, Marseille, France

Charles-Antoine Guérin

LSEET, UMR 6017, Université du Sud-Toulon-Var, CNRS, La Garde, France

Bertrand Chapron

Laboratoire d'Océanographie Spatiale, IFREMER, Plouzané, France

We investigate the statistical properties of a three-dimensional simple and versatile model for weakly nonlinear gravity waves in infinite depth, referred to as the “choppy wave model” (CWM). This model is analytically tractable, numerically efficient, and robust to the inclusion of high frequencies. It is based on horizontal rather than vertical local displacement of a linear surface and is a priori not restricted to large wavelengths. Under the assumption of space and time stationarity, we establish the complete first- and second-order statistical properties of surface random elevations and slopes for long-crested as well as fully two-dimensional surfaces, and we provide some characteristics of the surface variation rate and frequency spectrum. We establish a relationship between the so-called “dressed spectrum,” which is the enriched wave number spectrum of the nonlinear surface, and the “undressed” one, which is the spectrum of the underlying linear surface. The obtained results compare favorably with other classical analytical nonlinear theories. The slope statistics are further found to exhibit non-Gaussian peakedness characteristics. Compared to observations, the measured non-Gaussian omnidirectional slope statistics can only be explained by non-Gaussian effects and are consistently approached by the CWM.

Received 24 June 2008; accepted 18 May 2009; published 17 September 2009.

Citation: Nouguier, F., C.-A. Guérin, and B. Chapron (2009), “Choppy wave” model for nonlinear gravity waves, J. Geophys. Res., 114, C09012, doi:10.1029/2008JC004984.

Cited By

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