Swell Propagation Caused by Typhoon Passage to the Yellow and East China Seas

Abstract

Typhoons generate big swells frequently propagating over the East China Sea, the wide continental shelf sea with depth shallower than 200 m. The characteristic features of swell propagation into the Yellow and East China Seas caused by typhoon Herb in 1996 has been investigated applying a ray-tracing technique and a spectral wave model (SWAN) with an unstructured-mesh grid system. This study discusses the generation and propagation of the swells into the Yellow and East China Seas using the integration of ray trajectories and model-based simulated wave. Calculated and observed wave heights and periods at Gadeokdo, Korea are found to be in reasonable agreement with each other.