We examine the influence of wind forcing on the inception of breaking in surface gravity waves using an ensemble of high-resolution numerical simulations. We find that there is a critical point in the energetic evolution of the wave in which the convergence of kinetic energy at the wave crest can no longer be offset by conversion to potential energy, resulting in a rapid growth of kinetic energy up to breaking onset. This energetic signature is shown to consistently differentiate between non-breaking and breaking waves under a range of wind forcing speeds.
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Boettger et al. (2024) studied this question.
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