Utility of ocean wave parameters for improving predictions of ambient noise

This study is concerned with prediction of the "wind noise" component of ambient noise (AN) in the ocean. It builds on the seminal paper by Felizardo and Melville (1995), in which the authors quantified the correlation between AN and individual wind/wave parameters. Acoustic data are obtained from hydrophones deployed in the north and northeast Pacific Ocean, and wind/wave parameters are obtained from moored buoys and numerical models. We describe a procedure developed for this study which isolates the correlation of AN with wave parameters, independent of mutual correlation with wind speed (residual correlation). We then describe paired calibration/prediction experiments, whereby multiple wind/wave parameters are used simultaneously to estimate AN. We find that the improvement from inclusion of wave parameters is robust but modest. We interpret the latter outcome as suggesting that wave breaking responds to changes in local winds quickly, relative to, for example, total wave energy, which develops more slowly. This outcome is consistent with prior knowledge of the physics of wave breaking, e.g. Babanin (2011). We discuss this in context of the time/space response of various wave parameters to wind forcing.