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- Title
- On the existence of water turbulence induced by nonbreaking surface waves
- Author(s)
- Babanin, Alexander V.; Haus, Brian K.
- Abstract
- This paper is dedicated to wave-induced turbulence unrelated to wave breaking. The existence of such turbulence has been foreshadowed in a number of experimental, theoretical, and numerical studies. The current study presents direct measurements of this turbulence. The laboratory experiment was conducted by means of particle image velocimetry, which allowed estimates of wavenumber velocity spectra beneath monochromatic nonbreaking unforced waves. Observed spectra intermittently exhibited the Kolmogorov interval associated with the presence of isotropic turbulence. The magnitudes of the energy dissipation rates due to this turbulence in the particular case of 1.5-Hz deep-water waves were quantified as a function of the surface wave amplitude. The presence of such turbulence, previously not accounted for, can affect the physics of the wave energy dissipation, the subsurface boundary layer, and the ocean mixing in a significant way.
- Publication type
- Journal article
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology.
- Source
- Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 39, no. 10 (Oct 2009), pp. 2675-2679
- Publication year
- 2009
- FOR Code(s)
- 0405 Oceanography
- Keyword(s)
- Energy dissipation; Water turbulence; Wave breaking; Wind
- Publisher
- American Meterological Society
- ISSN
- 0022-3670
- Publisher URL
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009jpo4202.1
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2009 American Meteorological Society. Published version of the paper reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.
- Full text
- Peer reviewed
