Estimating ocean wave directional spreading using wave following buoys: A comparison of experimental buoy and gauge data

Directional spreading of ocean waves plays an important role in various aspects of ocean engineering, such as wave-induced loads, nonlinear wave evolution, and wave breaking. Wave following buoys, which are widely deployed across the oceans, offer the potential to measure directional wave properties. To assess the accuracy of directional spreading estimates made using buoy measurements, we compared estimates based on experimentally obtained buoy and wave gauge measurements, first presented in McAllister and van den Bremer (J Phys Oceanogr 50:399–414, 2020) Buoy and gauge measurements were recorded at the same locations and in identical sea states, allowing for a like-for-like comparison. We examine experiments with both following (unimodal in direction) and crossing (bimodal in direction) sea states. In addition to this, we use synthetic wave data to investigate the effects of wave generation and nonlinearity on spreading estimates. Our results show that while directional estimates produced using buoy measurements are reasonably accurate in following sea states, they struggle to identify distinct directional peaks in crossing sea states. We find that spreading estimates made using buoy measurements tend to underestimate the degree of directional spreading by approximately $$9-14\%$$ in following sea states, which is most apparent in narrowly spread conditions.