CONTENTS 



Page 

 CONVERSION FACTORS, U.S. CUSTOMARY TO METRIC (Sl) 5 



SYMBOLS AND DEFINITIONS 6 



I INTRODUCTION 7 



II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7 



III FIELD EVIDENCE FOR THE FINITE-DEPTH SPECTRAL FORM 9 



IV FORMULATION OF DEPTH-LIMITED SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT, H^ 12 



V FIELD AND LABORATORY EVIDENCE FOR DEPTH-LIMITED SIGNIFICANT 



HEIGHT, H£ 15 



VI DISCUSSION 18 



VII SUMMARY 22 



LITERATURE CITED 23 



TABLES 



1 Normalized form regression analysis (average of percent variance 



in regression of normalized form against frequency, f, 



explained by f) 11 



2 Average slope, X10~^, against f 11 



3 Variation of H^ with depth for ocean, large lake, and small 



lake generation cases 22 



FIGURES 



1 Location of the XERB buoy and the wave gages at CERC's Field Research 



Facility, Duck, North Carolina, during the October-November 1980 



ARSLOE experiments 10 



2 Comparisons of wave spectra at various depths to f ^ and f laws . . 13 



3 Selected storm spectra at different water depths -j^a 



4 Depth-limited significant wave height, K£, as a function of water 



depth and cutoff frequency 16 



5 Plot of R = (a/0.0081) ^ ' 2 as function of peak frequency of spectrum 



and windspeed, U 17 



6 Variation of significant wave height, H£, with the square root of 



water depth 19 



7 Estimate of H£ for laboratory conditions . . . ^^ 



8 Variation of wave height with square root of depth, 25 October 1980, 



Duck, North Carolina 21 



