Direct simulations of breaking ocean waves with data assimilation

The Numerical Flow Analysis (NFA) code is modified to assimilate data from lower bandwidth High-Order Spectral (HOS) simulations. NFA is a Cartesian-based LES code with Volume of Fluid (VOF) interface capturing. HOS is used to nudge the lowest wavenumber content in the NFA assimilation, and the highest wavenumbers are estimated to investigate the effects of wave nonlinearity and wave breaking. The formulation can be generalized to assimilate radar measurements of the ocean surface.