CONTENTS 



Page 



CONVERSION FACTORS, U.S. CUSTOMARY TO METRIC (SI) 8 



SYMBOLS AND DEFINITIONS. ■ 9 



I INTRODUCTION 11 



II PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SHALLOW-WATER OCEAN WAVES. . . 14 



III WAVE GAGE DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 17 



1. Collection 17 



2. Analysis ■. . . . 19 



IV SPECTRA, SPECTRAL SUI^IMARIES, AND SEA-SURFACE ELEVATION 



DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION PARAMETERS 31 



1. High-Energy Wave Spectra 31 



2. Mean Spectra 32 



3. Spectral and Sea-Surface Elevation Distribution 



Function Parameters 38 



V CONCLUSIONS 54 



VI SUMMARY 56 



LITERATURE CITED 58 



APPENDIX 



A INDIVIDUAL HIGH-ENERGY WAVE SPECTRAL PLOTS 61 



B MEAN SPECTRA GROUPED BY HEIGHT AND PERIOD 95 



C MEAJJ SPECTRA GROUPED BY HEIGHT, PERIOD AND WATER LEVEL . . 140 



D DESCRIPTION OF COMPUTER ROUTINE SMOOTH FOR IDENTIFYING 



^4AJ0R PEAKS AND VALLEYS IN AN IRREGULAR SIGNAL 145 



TABLES 



1 Information on wave gage locations 20 



2 Peak period grouping intervals 25 



3 Percentage of cases in each significant height group 



corresponding to number of major spectral peaks 42 



4 Linear correlation between number of major spectral peaks, 



significant height and period corresponding to the highest 



peak 43 



5 Percentage of cases in each peak period group corresponding 



to number of major spectral peaks '■•.*. ^^ 



