The growth of gravity-capillary waves in a coupled shear flow

Abstract

The growth rates and phase speeds of gravity-capillary wind waves are investigated through numerical solution of a linear, viscous, coupled, shear-flow perturbation model. Numerical results are obtained by transforming the boundary-value problem of a perturbed mean laminar shear flow into a matrix-eigenvalue problem using standard finite-difference methods.Detailed calculations are performed for a basic state composed of a logarithmic-linear mean flow profile in the air and a linear-logarithmic mean flow profile in the water. We exclude turbulent Reynolds stresses. Calculated growth rates show excellent agreement with corresponding experimental growth rates. This implies that the initial growth of gravity-capillary wind waves is almost certainly due to the instability of the coupled laminar shear flow in the air and water.The investigation also demonstrates that the shear flow in the water cannot be ignored in wave growth studies, since the usual 3-4%, highly sheared, wind-induced surface drift produces a significant increase in the growth of wind-generated gravity-capillary waves.