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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Measurements of Waves in a Wind-wave Tank Under Steady and Time-varying Wind Forcing
Published on: February 13, 2018
Coexistence of weak and strong wave turbulence in a swell propagation
V E Zakharov1, A O Korotkevich, A Pushkarev
1Department of Mathematics, University of Arizona, 617 North Santa Rita Avenue, PO Box 210089, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0089, USA. zakharov@math.arizona.edu
Abstract:
By performing two parallel numerical experiments-solving the dynamical Hamiltonian equations and solving the Hasselmann kinetic equation-we examined the applicability of the theory of weak turbulence to the description of the time evolution of an ensemble of free surface waves (a swell) on deep water. We observed qualitative coincidence of the results. To achieve quantitative coincidence, we augmented the kinetic equation by an empirical dissipation term modeling the strongly nonlinear process of white capping. Fitting the two experiments, we determined the dissipation function due to wave breaking and found that it depends very sharply on the parameter of nonlinearity (the surface steepness). The onset of white capping can be compared to a second-order phase transition. The results corroborate the experimental observations of Banner, Babanin, and Young.
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