Results are presented from the analysis of data obtained by underwater pressure recorders in the Pacific Ocean. Computed parameters describing the statistical distribution of wave heights and wave periods are given and incorporated into one‐parameter probability models closely fitting the data. The model for wave‐height distributions is found to provide a satisfactory explanation for the ratios among the mean and certain specified wave heights reported by other observers. The degree of relation between the heights or periods of successive waves or between the height and the period of the same wave was found to be relatively low.
The establishment of quantitative relationships between recorded wave-system characteristics and other phenomena requires numerical description of the wave record. Current concepts applied to time histories of wave activity at a point are discussed. Characteristic statistical regularities found in wave measurements are described. Examples given show the application of statistical techniques' to the description of wave systems in terms of the distribution of spectral energy as well as the distributions of "individual" wave heights and periods. Results from the prediction, from one point to another, of surface time histories illustrate the application of approximate spectral information.
During World War II a group of Naval officers conducted visual measurements of ocean waves simultaneously with instrumental recordings. A comparison of the visual and instrumental values indicated ".... the natural tendency for the observer .... to record not the average wave height but a wave height based on some kind of average of the highest waves. The general experience is that an observer will give a value for the wave height which represents the average of the highest 20 to 40 per cent of the waves" (SIO, 1944). The average height of the highest one-third of the waves, H1/3, was therefore suggested as the characteristic (or significant) wave height. "Characteristic wave period" was given a corresponding definition as the average period of the highest one-third waves.
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