Abstract
Breaking wave statistics were observed during the Surface Wave Processes Program, using a broadband hydrophone array. It is found that the source level of breaking waves is well correlated with their travel speed, implying that dynamical intensity of breaking is related to breaking wave speed. Therefore we investigate the possibility of calculating breaking wave speed based on directional wave spectra through a Monte-Carlo simulation. The simulation involves synthesizing the surface wave field and tracking breaking regions in the field selected with a breaking criterion. The linear wave field was synthe sized by Fourier transforming time-dependent directional wave spectra. Weak nonlinearity of surface waves was also incorporated based on an approach de veloped by Creamer et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 1989). Directional wave spectra were simultaneously measured using Doppler sonar, and used as input for the simulation. In this paper, we present a comparison of the simulation results with the acoustic observations.
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