New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Spectral features of the New Zealand deep-water ocean wave climate

KEVIN C.EWANS* ALICK C. KIBBLEWHITE

Department of Physics University of Auckland Private Bag Auckland, New Zealand
*Present address: Shell Internationale Petroleum Maatschappij B.V., P. O. Box 162, 2501 AN The Hague, The Netherlands

Abstract The wave climate at the Maui site off the west coast of the North Island and off the east coast of Great Barrier Island to the east of the North Island are examined. This is done by means of average wave spectra derived from a 2-year database, acquired from Waverider buoy measurements made over 1980 and 1981. The average spectra provide information about the individual sea states which characterise the wave climate, and show that on average the sea state on the east coast is less energetic than it is on the west coast Further, it is seen that this difference results largely from a dominant and persistent long-period south-westerly swell of 12.4 s period which is present at the Maui location but absent from the Great Bairier Island seas.

Keywords ocean waves; swell; local sea; wave spectra; average spectra; spectral statistics; sea state; west coast; east coast; Maui; Great Barrier Island M92017 Received 15 April 1992; accepted 10 July 1992

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1992, Vol. 26:323-338 The Royal Society of New Zealand 1992
Received 15 April 1992; accepted 10 July 1992

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1205K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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