scholarly journals Buoy Measurements of Wind–Wave Relations during Hurricane Matthew in 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (10) ◽  
pp. 2603-2609 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. Hsu ◽  
Yijun He ◽  
Hui Shen

AbstractStudies suggested that neutral-stability wind speed at 10 m U10 ≥ 9 m s −1 and wave steepness Hs/Lp ≥ 0.020 can be taken as criteria for aerodynamically rough ocean surface and the onset of a wind sea, respectively; here, Hs is the significant wave height, and Lp is the peak wavelength. Based on these criteria, it is found that, for the growing wind seas when the wave steepness increases with time during Hurricane Matthew in 2016 before the arrival of its center, the dimensionless significant wave height and peak period is approximately linearly related, resulting in U10 = 35Hs/Tp; here, Tp is the dominant or peak wave period. This proposed wind–wave relation for aerodynamically rough flow over the wind seas is further verified under Hurricane Ivan and North Sea storm conditions. However, after the passage of Matthew’s center, when the wave steepness was nearly steady, a power-law relation between the dimensionless wave height and its period prevailed with its exponent equal to 1.86 and a very high correlation coefficient of 0.97.

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (21) ◽  
pp. 5667-5685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey K. Gulev ◽  
Vika Grigorieva

Abstract This paper analyses secular changes and interannual variability in the wind wave, swell, and significant wave height (SWH) characteristics over the North Atlantic and North Pacific on the basis of wind wave climatology derived from the visual wave observations of voluntary observing ship (VOS) officers. These data are available from the International Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) collection of surface meteorological observations for 1958–2002, but require much more complicated preprocessing than standard meteorological variables such as sea level pressure, temperature, and wind. Visual VOS data allow for separate analysis of changes in wind sea and swell, as well as in significant wave height, which has been derived from wind sea and swell estimates. In both North Atlantic and North Pacific midlatitudes winter significant wave height shows a secular increase from 10 to 40 cm decade−1 during the last 45 yr. However, in the North Atlantic the patterns of trend changes for wind sea and swell are quite different from each other, showing opposite signs of changes in the northeast Atlantic. Trend patterns of wind sea, swell, and SWH in the North Pacific are more consistent with each other. Qualitatively the same conclusions hold for the analysis of interannual variability whose leading modes demonstrate noticeable differences for wind sea and swell. Statistical analysis shows that variability in wind sea is closely associated with the local wind speed, while swell changes can be driven by the variations in the cyclone counts, implying the importance of forcing frequency for the resulting changes in significant wave height. This mechanism of differences in variability patterns of wind sea and swell is likely more realistic than the northeastward propagation of swells from the regions from which the wind sea signal originates.


Author(s):  
Michele Drago ◽  
Giancarlo Giovanetti ◽  
Claudia Pizzigalli

The physical limit of the significant wave steepness is generally exceeded when assessing the seastate climate and the extreme iso-probability contours, i.e. too short significant wave peak periods Tp are sometimes associated to a certain significant wave height Hs. The occurrence of not physically consistent Tp is clearly due to a fault in the generally made assumption of a log-normal distribution of the Tp, where the physical limit for the period would be Tp > 0, i.e. the existence limit of the log-normal distribution, which is well below the real physical limit for significant wave steepness. If this is not a problem for pipeline design, where stability and fatigue are dominated by longer peak periods associated at each significant wave height, loads overestimation could arise for near surface structures, e.g. riser, where the largest loads and fatigue, are caused by the shorter peak periods associated to a certain significant wave height. Hence, the possibility to define a Tp distribution which respects the physical lower bound of the limiting wave steepness has a significant relevance when dealing with design and installation of near surface structures. The present paper proposes a new methodology for the assessment of the Hs-Tp distribution which respects an a-priori defined wave steepness limit. This can be done basing on the definition of significant wave steepness Sp = 2πHs/gTp2 which, assessing a limiting steepness Sp, provide an physical lower bound Tplim for the peak period Defining a new variable Tp′ = Tp – Tplim and imposing that Tp′ follows a log-normal distribution, hence having a physical limit Tp′ > 0, is equivalent to assess a Tp distribution which respects the defined significant wave steepness limit Tp > Tplim. A test case compares results obtained with the ‘old’ and ‘new’ methodologies and shows the implication on the design loads. Moreover, another test case has been investigated to verify the performance and characteristics of the new methodology.


Author(s):  
Dag Myrhaug ◽  
Se´bastien Fouques

The paper provides a bivariate distribution of significant wave height and characteristic wave steepness, as well as a bivariate distribution of significant wave height and characteristic surf parameter. The characteristic wave steepness in deep water is defined in terms of the significant wave height and the spectral peak period, and is relevant for e.g. the design of ships and marine structures. The characteristic surf parameter is given by the ratio between the slope of a beach or a structure and the square root of the characteristic wave steepness in deep water. The characteristic surf parameter is used to characterize surf zone processes and is relevant for e.g. wave run-up on beaches and coastal structures. The paper presents statistical properties of the wave parameters as well as examples of results typical for field conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo G. G. de Farias ◽  
João A. Lorenzzetti ◽  
Bertrand Chapron

We present an analysis of wind-sea and swell fields for mid-latitude and tropical Atlantic for the period 2002–2008 using a combination of satellite data (altimeter significant wave height and scatterometer surface winds) and model results (spectrum peak wave period and propagation direction). Results show a dominance of swell over wind-sea regimes throughout the year. A small but clear decrease in swell energy and an associated increase in wind-sea potential growth were observed in the NE trade winds zone. A seasonal summertime increase in wind-sea energy in the Amazon River mouth and adjacent shelf region and in African coast was apparent in the results, probably associated to a strengthening of the alongshore trade winds in these regions. Albeit with a significantly smaller energy contribution of wind-seas as compared to swell energy, we could say that a kind of mixed seas is more evident in the trade winds region, with the remaining area being highly dominated by swell energy. An analysis of wave-age shows the absence of young-seas. Only ~2% of all data points was classified as wind-sea, a classification confirmed by a fit to a theoretical relation between wind speed, peak period, and significant wave height for fully developed wind-seas.


Author(s):  
Zhenjia (Jerry) Huang ◽  
Qiuchen Guo

In wave basin model test of an offshore structure, waves that represent the given sea states have to be generated, qualified and accepted for the model test. For seakeeping and stationkeeping model tests, we normally accept waves in wave calibration tests if the significant wave height, spectral peak period and spectrum match the specified target values. However, for model tests where the responses depend highly on the local wave motions (wave elevation and kinematics) such as wave impact, green water impact on deck and air gap tests, additional qualification checks may be required. For instance, we may need to check wave crest probability distributions to avoid unrealistic wave crest in the test. To date, acceptance criteria of wave crest distribution calibration tests of large and steep waves of three-hour duration (full scale) have not been established. The purpose of the work presented in the paper is to provide a semi-empirical nonlinear wave crest distribution of three-hour duration for practical use, i.e. as an acceptance criterion for wave calibration tests. The semi-empirical formulas proposed in this paper were developed through regression analysis of a large number of fully nonlinear wave crest distributions. Wave time series from potential flow simulations, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and model test results were used to establish the probability distribution. The wave simulations were performed for three-hour duration assuming that they were long-crested. The sea states are assumed to be represented by JONSWAP spectrum, where a wide range of significant wave height, peak period, spectral peak parameter, and water depth were considered. Coefficients of the proposed semi-empirical formulas, comparisons among crest distributions from wave calibration tests, numerical simulations and the semi-empirical formulas are presented in this paper.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Roncetti ◽  
Fabrício Nogueira Corrêa ◽  
Carl Horst Albrecht ◽  
Breno Pinheiro Jacob

Lifting operations with offshore cranes are fundamental for proper functioning of a platform. Despite the great technological development, offshore cranes load charts only consider the significant wave height as parameter of environmental load, neglecting wave period, which may lead to unsafe or overestimated lifting operations. This paper aims to develop a method to design offshore crane operational limit diagrams for lifting of personnel and usual loads, in function of significant wave height and wave peak period, using time domain dynamic analysis, for a crane installed on a floating unit. The lifting of personnel with crane to transfer between a floating unit and a support vessel is a very used option in offshore operations, and this is in many cases, the only alternative beyond the helicopter. Due to recent fatal accidents with lifting operations in offshore platforms, it is essential the study about this subject, contributing to the increase of safety. The sea states for analysis were chosen covering usual significant wave heights and peak periods limits for lifting operations. The methodology used the SITUA / Prosim software to obtain the dynamic responses of the personnel transfer basket lifting and container loads on a typical FPSO. Through program developed by the author, it was implemented the automatic generation of diagrams as a function of operational limits. It is concluded that using this methodology, it is possible to achieve greater efficiency in the design and execution of personnel and routine load lifting, increasing safety and a wider weather window available.


Author(s):  
Catarina S. Soares ◽  
C. Guedes Soares

This paper presents the results of a comparison of the fit of three bivariate models to a set of 14 years of significant wave height and peak wave period data from the North Sea. One of the methods defines the joint distribution from a marginal distribution of significant wave height and a set of distributions of peak period conditional on significant wave height. Other method applies the Plackett model to the data and the third one applies the Box-Cox transformation to the data in order to make it approximately normal and then fits a bivariate normal distribution to the transformed data set. It is shown that all methods provide a good fit but each one have its own strengths and weaknesses, being the choice dependent on the data available and applications in mind.


1992 ◽  
Vol 114 (4) ◽  
pp. 278-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Guedes Soares ◽  
M. C. Nolasco

The spectral models of individual wave systems have one peak and are described by theoretical models that have gained general acceptance. This work deals with sea states with more than one wave system, leading to spectral models with two or more peaks. Use is made of spectra derived from measurements off the Portuguese Coast and data is provided as to their probability of occurrence as well as about the dependence of the spectral parameters on the significant wave height and peak period. It is shown that wind-dominated and swell-dominated two-peaked spectra tend to occur in different areas of the scatter diagram. The spectral parameters of the two-peaked spectra show little correlation with significant wave height and peak period.


Author(s):  
Anne Karin Magnusson ◽  
Karsten Trulsen ◽  
Ole Johan Aarnes ◽  
Elzbieta M. Bitner-Gregersen ◽  
Mika P. Malila

Abstract On November 30, 2018, our attention was caught when analyzing wave profile time series measured by a platform mounted wave sensor (a SAAB REX radar) at Ekofisk, central North Sea. The 20-minute time series had not only one, but three consecutive waves with individual heights that all were more than twice the significant wave height, the two last of them being almost equally high with a factor 2.35 to the significant wave height of 4m (from 4σ(η), over 20 minutes). Counting three rogue waves in one sequence seems to be very rare. In this study we analyze how the shape is evolving in space and time using linear and non-linear propagation methods developed by Mark Donelan [1,2] and Karsten Trulsen [3,4]. Weather conditions and characteristics of the sea state with the ‘Three Sisters’ (named the “Justine Three Sisters”) are presented. It is found that the Three Sisters occurred in a crossing sea condition, with wind sea and swell coming from directions 60 degrees apart, with about same frequency, but very different energy.


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