Investigation of nonlinear interactions in ocean swell waves using the reduced bispectrum

In this paper, a two-dimensional (2-D) reduced bicoherence function which can be calculated via the reduced bispectrum is introduced. The statistical and computational aspects of the 2-D reduced bicoherence function are compared with those of the conventional bicoherence function. It is shown that the proposed technique is less noise-sensitive than the conventional bicoherence estimate. The use of the 2-D reduced bicoherence function to investigate nonlinear interactions in ocean swell waves is also demonstrated. As the 2-D reduced bicoherence can be efficiently calculated, it is proposed to use this novel technique in oceanographic field experiments that require real-time data processing and interpretation.