%0 Journal Article %T Universality of sea wave growth and its physical roots %+ University of Arizona %+ P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (SIO) %+ Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) %+ Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie (MIO) %A Zakharov, Vladimir E. %A Badulin, Sergei I. %A Hwang, Paul A. %A Caulliez, Guillemette %< avec comité de lecture %Z MIO:15-040 %@ 0022-1120 %J Journal of Fluid Mechanics %I Cambridge University Press (CUP) %V 780 %P 503-535 %8 2015-09-01 %D 2015 %R 10.1017/jfm.2015.468 %K air/sea interactions %K surface gravity waves %K wind–wave interactions %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean, AtmosphereJournal articles %X Assuming resonant nonlinear wave interactions to be the dominant physical mechanism of growing wind-driven seas we propose a concise relationship between instantaneous wave steepness and time or fetch of wave development expressed in dimensionless wave periods or lengths. This asymptotic physical law derived from the first principles of the theory of weak turbulence does not contain wind speed explicitly. The validity of this law is illustrated by results of numerical simulations, in situ measurements ofgrowing wind seas and wind-wave tank observations. The impact of this new view of sea-wave physics is discussed in the context of conventional approaches to wave modelling and forecasting. %G English %L hal-01200634 %U https://hal.science/hal-01200634 %~ INSU %~ UNIV-TLN %~ CNRS %~ UNIV-AMU %~ MIO %~ OSU-INSTITUT-PYTHEAS %~ GIP-BE %~ MIO-OPLC