A physical model of sea wave period from altimeter data

Abstract

A physical model for sea wave period from altimeter data is presented. Physical roots of the model are in recent advances of the theory of weak turbulence of wind-driven waves that predicts the link of instant wave energy to instant energy flux to/from waves. The model operates with wave height and its spatial derivative and does not refer to normalized radar cross-section σ0 measured by the altimeter. Thus, the resulting formula for wave period does not contain any empirical parameters and does not require features of particular satellite altimeter or any calibration for specific region of measurements. A single case study illustrates consistency of the new approach with previously proposed empirical models in terms of estimates of wave periods and their statistical distributions. The paper brings attention to the possible corruption of dynamical parameters such as wave steepness or energy fluxes to/from waves when using the empirical approaches. Applications of the new model to the studies of sea wave dynamics are discussed. Key Points A physical model for sea wave period from altimeter data is presented The resulting formula for wave period does not contain any empirical parameters Relevance of the new model is shown in a case study © 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.