NPG Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics NPG Nonlin. Processes Geophys. 1607-7946 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/npg-12-1011-2005 Theoretical interpretation of fetch limited wind-drivensea observations Zakharov V. E. 1 2 3 Department of Mathematics, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of Russian Academyof Sciences, Moscow, Russia Waves and Solitons LLC, Phoenix, Arizona, USA 14 12 2005 12 6 1011 1020 Copyright: © 2005 V. E. Zakharov 2005 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This article is available from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/12/1011/2005/npg-12-1011-2005.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/12/1011/2005/npg-12-1011-2005.pdf

We show that the results of major fetch limited field studies of wind-generated surface gravity waves on deep water can be explained in the framework of simple analytical model. The spectra measured in these experiments are described by self-similar solutions of ``conservative" Hasselmann equation that includes only advective and nonlinear interaction terms. Interaction with the wind and dissipation due to the wave breaking indirectly defines parameters of the self-similar solutions.