Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to present the first estimates of the breaking strength parameter, , for individual oceanic whitecaps. This is achieved by combining the estimates of the dissipation rate per unit breaking crest length for these whitecaps reported in Callaghan et al. (2024, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023jc020193 ) with a measure of the whitecap breaking wave speed to implement the Duncan (1981, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1981.0127 ) relationship. The resulting values of span the range of previously reported laboratory values. Moreover, average values of are in excellent agreement with previous field‐derived average values using different approaches. The results suggest that making routine estimates of for individual whitecaps is now possible. This opens up new possibilities for how the fifth moment of Phillips' distribution of breaking wave crests can be better constrained to estimate the total dissipation rate of energy by oceanic whitecaps.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
DOI: 10.1029/2025gl116342
Author: Adrian H. Callaghan
Institution: Imperial College London
Language: English
Subfield: Oceanography
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
OpenAlex ID: W4414457543