swell and wind-sea distributions over the mid-latitude and tropical north atlantic for the period 2002–2008膨胀和风浪分布在中纬度地区和热带北大西洋2002 - 2008年期间.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Oceanography Volume 2012, Article ID 306723, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/306723 Research Article Swell and Wind-Sea Distributions over the Mid-Latitude and Tropical North Atlantic for the Period 2002–2008 1 ˜ 1 2 Eduardo G. G. de Farias, Joao A. Lorenzzetti, and Bertrand Chapron 1 Divisao de Sensoriamento Remoto, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), ˜ CP 515 12227-010 Sao Jose dos Campos SP, Brazil ˜ ´ 2 Laboratoire d’Oceanographie Spatiale, Institut Franc¸ais de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), ´ 70 29280 Plouzane, France ´ Correspondence should be addressed to Eduardo G. G. de Farias, gentil@dsr.inpe.br Received 29 November 2011; Revised 28 December 2011; Accepted 19 January 2012 Academic Editor: Swadhin Behera Copyright © 2012 Eduardo G. G. de Farias et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We present an analysis of wind-sea and swell fields for mid-latitude and tropical Atlantic for the period 2002–2008 using a combination of satellite data (altimeter significant wave height and scatterometer surface winds) and model results (spectrum peak wave period and propagation direction). Results show a dominance of swell over wind-sea regimes throughout the year. A small but clear decrease in swell energy and an associated increase in