Abstract
Swells can travel thousands of kilometers. The source of distant-source
swells propagated from the North Pacific Ocean into the China Sea area
has not yet been clarified. In this study, WAVEWATCH III was used to
calculate the wave fields in two domains of the Northwest Pacific Ocean
(WNP) and the North Pacific Ocean (NP), respectively. The swell tracking
algorithm was improved to determine the source of distant-source swells.
Comparative analysis of bulk wave parameters across two computational
domains clearly reveals the propagation of distant-source swells into
the China Sea during the autumn and winter seasons. Wave spectra at
selected points contain information about these far-field swells, and
the algorithm identifies that the far-field swells mainly originate from
two source locations in the middle and low latitudes of NP. Frequent
changes in the wind direction of the storm system at the swell source
location are consistent with the shorter duration of the far-field
swells. This work provides a basis for future research on coastal swell
forecasting and swell warning.