Breaking waves are considered an important source of turbulent energy, supplementing to traditional shear production in the air-sea system. Breaking waves also play an important role in development of thermo-dynamical and turbulent structures in the ocean. Based on a new concept of oceanic turbulence and a wave breaking condition of the linear wave theory, a surface wave parameterization is developed. This wave parameterization includes wave-dependent roughness and is tested against available data on wave-dependent turbulence dissipation, roughness length, drag coefficient, and momentum fluxes using a coupled air-wave-sea model.

Taking the wind-wave-turbulence-current relationship into account, a new turbulence closure with the wave parameterization is presented. The NAval postgraduate school ocean Model (NAM) includes these processes. The wave parameterization in the model is able to relate model variables to wave parameters such as wave height, age, phase speed, period, and length. The NAM box model (idealized California coastal Monterey Bay regions) is used in a circulation-wave coupling study with idealized wave height and wave age fields. This study is focused on the sensitivity of the current field to the surface waves. This study also demonstrates the capability of the NAM model in reproducing an observed upwelling feature for the idealized California coastal region.