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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Physical Oceanography
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1486860
This article is part of the Research Topic Prediction Models and Disaster Assessment of Ocean Waves, and the Coupling Effects of Ocean Waves in Various Ocean-Air Processes View all 7 articles

Adaptability Assessment of the Whitecap Statistical Physics Model with cruise observations under High Sea States

Provisionally accepted
Yongfang Shi Yongfang Shi 1Yongzeng Yang Yongzeng Yang 1*Jinpeng Qi Jinpeng Qi 2Haili Wang Haili Wang 3
  • 1 First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao, China
  • 2 College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (Huadong), Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
  • 3 State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Whitecaps are crucial for understanding ocean-atmosphere interactions, particularly under high sea states, where quantifying whitecap coverage has long been a key research focus. This study provides the first validation of the Whitecap Statistical Physics Model (WSPM) under high sea states, using observational data from the High Wind Speed Gas Exchange Study (HiWinGS). The WSPM showed good agreement with observational data across the majority of sites, accurately capturing variations in whitecap coverage under wind speeds exceeding 15 m/s and significant wave heights (SWH) up to 10 meters. At the same time, errors in the WSPM's data sources, along with complex sea conditions marked by rapid shifts in wind direction and alternating dominance of wind waves and swell, contributed to discrepancies in the model results.Additionally, this study highlights the superiority of physics-based models over simple wind-speed-dependent parameterizations in capturing the complexities of wave dynamics. The findings suggest that the WSPM is highly effective in capturing the dynamics of whitecap coverage across a range of high sea states, providing a detailed and robust reference for the application of WSPM in real-world scenarios.

    Keywords: wave breaking, whitecap coverage, whitecap statistical physics model, cruise observations, high sea states

    Received: 27 Aug 2024; Accepted: 17 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Shi, Yang, Qi and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yongzeng Yang, First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao, China

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