Improvement and application of a saturation based wave dissipation function in SWAN model

Wave dissipation characteristics in SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore) model are investigated through numerical experiments. It is found that neither the fully developed integral parameters of wind waves (significant wave height and peak frequency) nor the high frequency spectral tail can be well reproduced by the default wave dissipation source terms. A new spectral dissipation source term is proposed, which comprises saturation based dissipation above two times of peak frequency and improved whitecapping dissipation at lower frequency spectrum. The reciprocal wave age (u^*/c_p) is involved into the whitecapping model to adjust dissipation rate at different wind speed. The Phillips higher frequency saturation parameter in the saturation-based dissipation is no longer taken as a constant, but varies with wave age. Numerical validations demonstrate that both the wind wave generation process and higher frequency spectrum of wind waves can be well simulated by the new wave dissipation term.