Impacts of High Frequency Spectral Tail of the Surface Gravity Waves on the Stokes Drift

Abstract

The impacts of different wave spectrum formulations with high frequency tail on the Stokes drift are studied in this paper. Two wave spectrum formulations are described. One is from the Donelan and Pierson spectrum extended to the high frequency range (denoted by EDP spectrum) by Paskyabi and Jenkins, and the other is a combined spectrum (termed the Combi spectrum) provided by Tsagareli. Using the EDP spectrum and Combi spectrum, the Stokes drift velocities and Stokes transports are calculated for the different wind speeds. The results show that the high frequency spectral tail of the surface gravity waves obviously changes the Stokes drift velocity on the sea surface, but has little impact on the Stokes transport.