The practicality of common wave breaking criteria is reviewed. Video recordings of the sea surface taken from aboard R/P FLIP are used to extract breaking wave properties. The key quantity is Λ(c)dc, the length of breaking crests per unit area propagating with speeds in the range (c, c+ dc). Independent of wave field development, Λ(c) is found to peak at intermediate wave scales and to drop off...

We have added a new Figure 3, where we show two frequency spectra. The first spectrum (Figure 3 a) is in absence of the breaking waves, where the first peak indicates the edge wave frequency and the second peak indicates the surface elevation frequency. The second frequency spectrum (Figure 3 b) is plotted in presence of breaking wave and indicates the suppression of the peak for the edge wave ...

Phase convergence to within lOin mechanically generated waves was achieved at a specified point in a wave flume by frequency focusing. Owing to the presence of nonlinear waves, the crest elevation reaches a maximum somewhat further from the waveboard, where also breaking occurs if the waves are of sufficient size. The critical amplitude for breaking was not in close agreement with previous meas...

CAMENEN, B. and LARSON, M., 2008. A general formula for noncohesive suspended sediment transport. Journal of Coastal Research, 24(3), 615–627. West Palm Beach (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. A simple and robust suspended load transport formula for noncohesive sediment is presented for application to river, estuarine, and coastal environments with the use of depth-averaged models. The formula is base...

An experimental study of the microwave backscatter and acoustic radiation from breaking waves is reported. It is found that the averaged microwave and acoustic measurements correlate with the dynamics of wave breaking. Both the mean-square acoustic pressure and the backscattered microwave power correlate with the wave slope and dissipation, for waves of moderate slope (S < 0.28). The backscatte...

The three-dimensional nature of breaking Rossby waves in the polar wintertime stratosphere is studied using an idealized global primitive equation model. The model is initialized with a well-formed polar vortex, characterized by a latitudinal band of steep potential vorticity (PV) gradients. Planetary-scale Rossby waves are generated by varying the topography of the bottom boundary, correspondi...

This project implements a method, presented by Longuet-Higgins and Cokelet, for modeling the breaking of ocean waves. Five waves are generated, with the same shaped profile but different amplitudes. Their behavior over time is compared, and it is seen that higher amplitude waves break faster and with a sharper point. Additionally, a variable S is calculated to measure the surfability of these w...

We examine the dynamics of two bright solitary waves with a negative nonlinear term. The observed repulsion between two solitary waves – when these are in an antisymmetric combination – is attributed to conservation laws. Slight breaking of parity, in combination with weak relaxation of energy, leads the two solitary waves to merge. The effective repulsion between solitary waves requires certai...

In this paper the wave breaking induced by modulational instability is investigated numerically. The wave train is composed by a fundamental component with two sideband disturbances and the analysis is performed for those conditions in which the instability leads the limiting steepness to be exceeded. Due to the different speeds characterizing individual waves and the peak of the envelope, the ...