Estimates of the breaking strength parameter for individual oceanic whitecaps
Author(s)
Callaghan, Adrian
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to present the first estimates of the breaking strength parameter, b, 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 b span the range of previously reported laboratory values. Moreover, average values of b are in excellent agreement with previous field‐derived average values using different approaches. The results suggest that making routine estimates of b for individual whitecaps is now possible. This opens up new possibilities for how the fifth moment of Phillips' Λ(c) distribution of breaking wave crests can be better constrained to estimate the total dissipation rate of energy by
oceanic whitecaps.
oceanic whitecaps.
Date Issued
2025-09-28
Date Acceptance
2025-09-16
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2025, 52 (18)
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
52
Issue
18
Copyright Statement
© 2025. The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
10.1029/2025GL116342
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e2025GL116342
Date Publish Online
2025-09-24