Combined wavelet and principal component analysis (WEof) of a scale-oriented model of coastal ocean gravity waves

Coastal ocean numerical modeling is basically the representation of the dynamics of the coastal ocean in a chosen range of length scales and over an associated frequency band, including the modeling of both coherent processes and associated transient processes. The ocean dynamical features can be individually identified by combining wavelet analysis for time and frequency localization and principal component analysis to “decorrelate” physically consistent structures. In the present paper, the so-called WEof analysis is applied for the extraction of external gravity waves and internal gravity wave lower modes in a simple case of a flat bottom, constant Brunt-Väisälä ocean. It is shown that, with some well known restrictive assumptions, WEof analysis is an efficient candidate for the recognition of frequency localized dynamical processes.