Editorial Type:
Article
Article Type:
Research Article

On the Shoaling of Solitary Waves in the Presence of Short Random Waves

Miao Tian Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

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Alex Sheremet Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

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James M. Kaihatu Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

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Gangfeng Ma Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

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Print Publication:
01 Mar 2015
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-14-0142.1
Page(s):
792–806
Restricted access

Abstract

Overhead video from a small number of laboratory tests conducted by Kaihatu et al. at the Tsunami Wave Basin at Oregon State University shows that the breaking point of a shoaling solitary wave shifts to deeper water if random waves are present. The analysis of the laboratory data collected confirms that solitary waves indeed tend to break earlier in the presence of random wave field, and suggests that the effect is the result of the radiation stresses gradient induced by the random wave fields. A theoretical approach based on the forced KdV equation is shown to successfully predict the shoaling process of the solitary wave. An ensemble of tests simulated using a state-of-the-art nonhydrostatic model is used to test the statistical significance of the process. The results of this study point to a potentially significant oceanographic process that has so far been ignored and suggest that systematic research into the interaction between tsunami waves and the swell background could increase the accuracy of tsunami forecasting.

Corresponding author address: Miao Tian, Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, 365 Weil Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611. E-mail: mtian04.18@ufl.edu

Abstract

Overhead video from a small number of laboratory tests conducted by Kaihatu et al. at the Tsunami Wave Basin at Oregon State University shows that the breaking point of a shoaling solitary wave shifts to deeper water if random waves are present. The analysis of the laboratory data collected confirms that solitary waves indeed tend to break earlier in the presence of random wave field, and suggests that the effect is the result of the radiation stresses gradient induced by the random wave fields. A theoretical approach based on the forced KdV equation is shown to successfully predict the shoaling process of the solitary wave. An ensemble of tests simulated using a state-of-the-art nonhydrostatic model is used to test the statistical significance of the process. The results of this study point to a potentially significant oceanographic process that has so far been ignored and suggest that systematic research into the interaction between tsunami waves and the swell background could increase the accuracy of tsunami forecasting.

Corresponding author address: Miao Tian, Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, 365 Weil Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611. E-mail: mtian04.18@ufl.edu
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