Analysis of the Global Swell and Wind Sea Energy Distribution Using WAVEWATCH III

In the past several decades, more and more studies have focused on the global view of swell and wind sea climate. However, the knowledge of wind sea and swell is still incomplete as the lack of integrated description of all the wave components. In this paper, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Era-medium wind data is used to run WAVEWATCH III model and the global wave fields in 2010 is reproduced. With the spectra energy partition (SEP) method, two-dimensional wave spectra at each grid were separated and the detailed information for components of wind sea and swell was obtained. The spatial and seasonal ratio of swell and wind sea energy to total wave energy were also investigated. Compared to swell, the global distribution of wind sea energy is highly affected by seasons. We also found that the swell energy proportion to the total wave energy decrease with the value of inverse wave age. This study will improve the knowledge of surface wave energy composition and thus the parameterization of global-scale wind-wave interaction and air-sea momentum flux.