The Kinematics of Breaking Waves in the Surf Zone

Book excerpt: Simultaneous measurements of sea surface elevation and onshore and alongshore water particle velocities were measured at three locations within the surf zone using two capacitance type penetrating wave staffs and three two-component electromagnetic flow meters. The probability density functions, pdf, for the sea surface elevation were always highly positively skewed, whereas the pdf's for the velocities were both negatively and positively skewed. Mean values of the onshore and alongshore components of flow reflected the influence of a rip current frequently observed just south of the instrument locations. Strong harmonics in the spectra of sea surface fluctuations and particle velocities infer nonlinear conditions. Coherence values between waves and onshore flow were high, ranging above 0.9. The coherence between waves and onshore flow was used to separate the turbulence and wave-induced velocity components. Over the range of collapsing to spilling breakers a reasonable value for the ratio of turbulent to wave-induced velocity was determined to be approximately 0.75. Saturation regions were found in the wave and velocity energy-density spectra at higher frequencies as evidenced by -5 and -3 slopes, respectively. (Author).