Sharpe Matthew M.

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Sharpe
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Matthew M.
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  • Technical Report
    Wind and wave climatology on the New England Shelf, May 1987-August 1988
    (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1990-02) Sharpe, Matthew M. ; Graber, Hans C.
    Wave power spectra from four waverider buoys on the New England Shelf and wind velocity records from three of those buoys and a fixed platform were analyzed. The data span the period from May 1987 through August 1988. Time series plots of significant wave height, mean wave period and modal (peak) period and distribution histograms of significant wave height, mean frequency and modal frequency are presented for the two buoys nearest to Martha's Vineyard. Time series plots of wind speed and vector velocity and distribution histograms of speed and direction are plotted for one buoy and the platform. For all stations, monthly and seasonal mean and extreme values of significant wave height, mean and modal wave periods, wind speed and mean weighted and unweighted values of wind direction are provided in tabular form. Five and ten year extreme wave height predictions are also calculated.
  • Thesis
    The distribution of wave heights and periods for seas with unimodal and bimodal power density spectra
    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1990-09) Sharpe, Matthew M.
    Observed distributions of wave heights and periods taken from one year of surface wave monitoring near Martha's Vineyard are compared to distributions based on narrow-band theory. The joint distributions of wave heights and periods and the marginal height distributions are examined. The observed significant wave heights and the heights and periods of the extreme waves are also studied. Seas are classified by the shapes of their power density spectra. Spectra with a single peak are designated as unimodal and spectra with two peaks as bimodal. Seas are further classified by spectral width, a function of the three lowest spectral moments. The joint distributions of wave heights and periods from seas with narrow spectral widths take the general shape predicted by narrow-band theory and the statistics of extreme waves for these seas are well described. As spectral width increases, agreement between the theoretical and observed distributions diminishes and the significant wave heights and statistics of extreme waves show increasing variability. Bimodal seas with wide-banded spectra are found to have larger significant and extreme wave heights and shorter extreme wave periods than unimodal seas of the same width.