A Review of Parametric Descriptions of Tropical Cyclone Wind-Wave Generation

More than three decades of observations of tropical cyclone wind and wave fields have resulted in a detailed understanding of wave-growth dynamics, although details of the physics are still lacking. These observations are presented in a consistent manner, which provides the basis to be able to characterize the full wave spectrum in a parametric form throughout tropical cyclones. The data clearly shows that an extended fetch model can be used to represent the maximum significant wave height in such storms. The shape stabilizing influence of nonlinear interactions means that the spectral shape is remarkably similar to fetch-limited cases. As such, the tropical cyclone spectrum can also be described by using well-known parametric models. A detailed process is described to parameterize the wave spectrum at any point in a tropical cyclone.