Shoreline dissipation of infragravity waves

Abstract

Infragravity waves (0.005–0.05 Hz) have recently been observed to dissipate a large part of their energy in the short-wave (0.05–1 Hz) surf zone, however, the underlying mechanism is not well understood. Here, we analyse two new field data sets of near-bed pressure and velocity at up to 13 cross-shore locations in View the MathML source depth on a ≈1:80 and a ≈1:30 sloping beach to quantify infragravity-wave dissipation close to the shoreline and to identify the underlying dissipation mechanism. A frequency-domain Complex Eigenfunction analysis demonstrated that infragravity-wave dissipation was frequency dependent. Infragravity waves with a frequency larger than View the MathML source were predominantly onshore progressive, indicative of strong dissipation of the incoming infragravity waves. Instead, waves with a lower frequency showed the classic picture of cross-shore standing waves with minimal dissipation. Bulk infragravity reflection coefficients at the shallowest position (water depth View the MathML source) were well below 1 (≈0.20), implying that considerable dissipation took place close to the shoreline. We hypothesise that for our data sets infragravity-wave breaking is the dominant dissipation mechanism close to the shoreline, because the reflection coefficient depends on a normalised bed slope, with the higher infragravity frequencies in the mild-sloping regime where breaking is known to dominate dissipation. Additional numerical modelling indicates that, close to the shoreline of a 1:80 beach, bottom friction contributes to infragravity-wave dissipation to a limited extent, but that non-linear transfer of infragravity energy back to sea–swell frequencies is unimportant.