Ocean Waves and Remote Sensing

Ocean surface waves arise from wind transferring momentum to the sea, and understanding that exchange—how wind stress drives wave growth, how waves in turn alter the airflow above them—sits at the heart of modern physical oceanography. Satellite altimetry has transformed the discipline by providing near-global measurements of wave height and wave climate over decades, enabling researchers to track long-term changes and validate the numerical models used to forecast wave conditions. Yet significant puzzles remain: the formation of rogue waves, which appear spontaneously and far exceed the heights predicted by standard statistics, is still incompletely explained, and the role of Langmuir turbulence and surface wave breaking in mediating heat and gas exchange across the air-sea boundary remains an active area of inquiry. Improving wave models matters practically for shipping safety, coastal engineering, and predicting the intensification of tropical cyclones, whose strength depends critically on the sea-surface conditions beneath them.

Works

64,834

Total citations

730,956

Keywords

Ocean WavesWind StressWave ClimateRogue WavesTropical CyclonesWave Modeling