Spectrally resolved energy dissipation rate and momentum flux of breaking waves

Video observations of the ocean surface taken from aboard the Research Platform FLIP reveal the distribution of the along- crest length and propagation velocity of breaking wave crests that generate visible whitecaps. The key quantity assessed is Lambda(c)dc, the average length of breaking crests per unit area propagating with speeds in the range (c, c + dc). Independent of the wave field development, Lambda(c) is found to peak at intermediate wave scales and to drop off sharply at larger and smaller scales. In developing seas breakers occur at a wide range of scales corresponding to phase speeds from about 0.1 c(p) to c(p), where cp is the phase speed of the waves at the spectral peak. However, in developed seas, breaking is hardly observed at scales corresponding to phase speeds greater than 0.5 c(p). The phase speed of the most frequent breakers shifts from 0.4 c(p) to 0.2 c(p) as the wave field develops. The occurrence of breakers at a particular scale as well as the rate of surface turnover are well correlated with the wave saturation. The fourth and fifth moments of Lambda(c) are used to estimate breaking-wave-supported momentum fluxes, energy dissipation rate, and the fraction of momentum flux supported by air-entraining breaking waves. No indication of a Kolmogorov-type wave energy cascade was found; that is, there is no evidence that the wave energy dissipation is dominated by small-scale waves. The proportionality factor b linking breaking crest distributions to the energy dissipation rate is found to be (7 +/- 3) x 10 (-5), much smaller than previous estimates.