Whitecap coverage in coastal environment for steady and unsteady wave field conditions

Breaking waves represent a “key” parameter for many applications involved with a large number of environmental phenomena. In particular, it is well recognized that the whitecap cover induced by breaking waves allows substantial enhancement of heat, momentum, gas and particle transfer at the air–sea interface. A large number of studies were conducted during the last decades on the variation of the whitecap fraction, commonly noted W. The results presented in this paper deal with the evolution of the whitecap coverage in coastal zone. In such areas, the wave field is often unsteady with an important variety of sea state developments. The present analysis is based on an extensive series of data obtained during an experimental campaign which took place on the Mediterranean coast in 2001. The results allow observation of the influence of the sea state conditions of the wave field on the whitecap coverage. In addition, this paper confirms the occurrence of a peak in the variations of the whitecap fraction with the wave age for coastal areas as suggested by Lafon et al. [Lafon, C., Piazzola, J., Forget, P., Le Calvé, O. and Despiau, S., 2004. Analysis of the variations of the whitecap fraction as measured in a coastal zone. Boundary-Layer Meteorol., 111: 339-360.]. A wave age dependent model for the whitecap fraction is then proposed, which takes into account both the wind and the wave influence, and hence, is characteristics of the different sea state conditions.