Surface Stokes drift from compact drifting wave buoys
Abstract
Surface Stokes drift depends strongly on the energy and directions of short waves, which are incompletely resolved by routine wave observations. We derive surface Stokes drift vectors from wave measurements collected by compact drifting buoys during three deployments in the North-East Atlantic and the Alboran Sea. The calculation uses vertical-acceleration spectra and first directional Fourier moments, which describe the mean wave direction and directional concentration at each frequency; it accounts for the Doppler shift caused by buoy motion relative to the water and adds a calibrated high-frequency tail above an intrinsic frequency of 0.7 Hz. Across 13,139 records, the median estimated speed is 0.081 m/s at a median wind speed of 6.8 m/s. Over the measured band of 0.04-1 Hz, accounting for wave directions reduces the magnitude by a median 39% relative to the unidirectional assumption. The median ratio of the parameterised tail magnitude above 0.7 Hz to the total estimated magnitude is 0.37. Comparisons with WAVEWATCH III and Copernicus Marine MFWAM show strong covariation and similar wind-dependent differences from the buoy-derived estimates. On the station-matched sample from the two Atlantic deployments, WAVEWATCH III directional spectra indicate that these differences within the compared band arise mainly from spectral levels rather than from net directional reduction. The observations provide constraints for model evaluation; the contribution of the unresolved short waves remains sensitive to the assumed spectral tail and its directional spreading.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{mironov2026surface,
title = {{Surface Stokes drift from compact drifting wave buoys}},
author = {Alexey S. Mironov and Fabrice Collard and Gwenaele Jan and Bertrand Chapron},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.21592},
eprint = {2609.21592},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21592},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Surface Stokes drift from compact drifting wave buoys
AU - Alexey S. Mironov
AU - Fabrice Collard
AU - Gwenaele Jan
AU - Bertrand Chapron
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.21592
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21592
AB - Surface Stokes drift depends strongly on the energy and directions of short waves, which are incompletely resolved by routine wave observations. We derive surface Stokes drift vectors from wave measurements collected by compact drifting buoys during three deployments in the North-East Atlantic and the Alboran Sea. The calculation uses vertical-acceleration spectra and first directional Fourier moments, which describe the mean wave direction and directional concentration at each frequency; it accounts for the Doppler shift caused by buoy motion relative to the water and adds a calibrated high-frequency tail above an intrinsic frequency of 0.7 Hz. Across 13,139 records, the median estimated speed is 0.081 m/s at a median wind speed of 6.8 m/s. Over the measured band of 0.04-1 Hz, accounting for wave directions reduces the magnitude by a median 39% relative to the unidirectional assumption. The median ratio of the parameterised tail magnitude above 0.7 Hz to the total estimated magnitude is 0.37. Comparisons with WAVEWATCH III and Copernicus Marine MFWAM show strong covariation and similar wind-dependent differences from the buoy-derived estimates. On the station-matched sample from the two Atlantic deployments, WAVEWATCH III directional spectra indicate that these differences within the compared band arise mainly from spectral levels rather than from net directional reduction. The observations provide constraints for model evaluation; the contribution of the unresolved short waves remains sensitive to the assumed spectral tail and its directional spreading.
ER -