On the statistical variability of some spectral bandwidth and nonlinearity parameters of wind generated gravity waves

Abstract

Some results on the statistical behaviour of several spectral parameters, characterizing the bandwidth and non-linearity of field wave records are presented. The relation between the stability of the parameters, the high cut-off frequency choice and the frequency degree of resolution, applying Maximum Entropy Method for spectral analysis, is discussed. The results show that it is very difficult to obtain a parameter being a good bandwidth estimator and not being affected by processes such as smoothness and, or, variation of high cut-off frequency. The parameters of non-linearity are very stable, in general, but their representativeness of non-linear aspects of waves is much more difficult to investigate.