Growth of Wind Waves with Fetch in the Sea of Japan under Winter Monsoon Investigated using Data from Satellite Altimeters and Scatterometer

By using wind vectors observed by NSCAT and significant wave heights observed by TOPEX/POSEIDON and ERS-2 altimeters, one-dimensional fetch growth of wind waves Is investigated under conditions of strong wind and high waves of the East Asian winter monsoon. The evolution of fetch-limited wind waves can be observed by the altimeters along the ground tracks. The fetch is estimated by using vector wind field observed by NSCAT. The derived growth characteristics of wind waves are compared with empirical relationships between the non-dimensional fetch and significant wave height proposed by previous studies. Good agreement with the empirical fetch graph formula normalized by the friction velocity is discemible, while the formulas normalized by the wind speed at a height of 10 m tend to underestimate the wave height under such severe conditions of high wind and very long fetch.