Effect of Broadness of Wave Spectrum on Significant Wave Height and Wave Power for Open Ocean Conditions of the Peru Basin

Abstract

When estimating significant wave height and wave power, it is regularly assumed 4 for the spectral estimate factor. It means considering a narrowband wave spectrum. That approach is accurate enough when the spectral broadness parameter is near zero. Since the Peru Basin is an open ocean: swells and local wind waves can overlap; therefore, its wave spectrum should be considered broadband. This work aims to demonstrate that the wave spectrum in the Peru Basin has waves in a broad band of frequencies and also discuss how this characteristic affects estimating the significant wave height and wave power. The methodology comprises numerical methods, inferential statistics, and spectral analysis applied to ocean data. The paper's conclusions declare the Peru Basin wave spectrum as broadband. The estimated significant wave height for broadband wave spectrum is 7% lower than if the wave spectrum was considered narrowband. We propose 3.7 as the spectral estimate factor for calculating the significant wave height in the Peru Basin instead of the commonly used 4. The significant wave height error when assuming a narrowband wave spectrum slightly affects the spectral parametric wave power calculation, causing a maximum overestimation of 5%. Nevertheless, accurately estimating significant wave height is critical for diverse marine technologies.