Wave Directional Spectra Measurements by Small Arrays in Lake Ontario

Wave records collected during the fall period of 1987 from a wave gauge array at the National Water Research Institute's tower on Lake Ontario are used to obtain detailed directional information of the wave field. Two direct Fourier transform and three maximum likelihood methods are used for calculation of directional wave spectra. Comparison of these techniques with simulated data shows that the convolutive maximum likelihood method (CMLM) performs better for the wave gauge array used in this experiment. The CMLM is used to obtain the directional wave spectra in the cases of onshore and offshore wind, and offshore wind in the presence of an onshore swell in Lake Ontario.