The Influence of Air–Sea Roughness, Sea Spray, and Storm Translation Speed on Waves in North Atlantic Storms

Abstract

Abstract A coupled atmosphere–wave–sea spray model system is used to evaluate the impact of sea spray and wave drag on storm-generated waves, their height variations, and directional wave spectra in relation to the storm location and translation speed. Results suggest that the decrease or increase of significant wave height due to spray and wave drag is most significant in high-wind regions to the right of the storm track. These processes are modulations on the maximum-wave region and tend to occur several hours after the peak wind events, depending on the storm translation velocity. The translation speed of the storm is important. The directional variation between local winds and wind-generated waves within rapidly moving storms that outrun the waves is notably different from that of trapped waves, when the dominant waves’ group velocity approximates the storm translation speed. While wave drag and spray can increase or reduce the magnitudes of wind and significant wave height, their nondirectional formulations allow them to have little apparent effect on the directional wave spectra.