We investigate the effect of constant-vorticity background shear on the properties of wavetrains in deep water. Using the methodology of Fokas (A Unified Approach to Boundary Value Problems, 2008, SIAM), we derive a higher-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the presence of shear and surface tension. We show that the presence of shear induces a strong coupling between the carrier wave and the mean-surface displacement. The effects of the background shear on the modulational instability of plane waves is also studied, where it is shown that shear can suppress instability, although not for all carrier wavelengths in the presence of surface tension. These results expand upon the findings of Thomas et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 24 (12), 2012, 127102). Using a modification of the generalized Lagrangian mean theory in Andrews & McIntyre (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 89, 1978, pp. 609–646) and approximate formulas for the velocity field in the fluid column, explicit, asymptotic approximations for the Lagrangian and Stokes drift velocities are obtained for plane-wave and Jacobi elliptic function solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Numerical approximations to particle trajectories for these solutions are found and the Lagrangian and Stokes drift velocities corresponding to these numerical solutions corroborate the theoretical results. We show that background currents have significant effects on the mean transport properties of waves. In particular, certain combinations of background shear and carrier wave frequency lead to the disappearance of mean-surface mass transport. These results provide a possible explanation for the measurements reported in Smith (J. Phys. Oceanogr., vol. 36, 2006, pp. 1381–1402). Our results also provide further evidence of the viability of the modification of the Stokes drift velocity beyond the standard monochromatic approximation, such as recently proposed in Breivik et al. (J. Phys. Oceanogr., vol. 44, 2014, pp. 2433–2445) in order to obtain a closer match to a range of complex ocean wave spectra.

We experimentally and numerically investigate the effect of wind forcing on the spectral dynamics of Akhmediev breathers, a wave-type known to model the modulation instability. We develop the wind model to the same order in steepness as the higher order modifcation of the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, also referred to as the Dysthe equation. This results in an asymmetric wind term in the higher order, in addition to the leading order wind forcing term. The derived model is in good agreement with laboratory experiments within the range of the facility's length. We show that the leading order forcing term amplifies all frequencies equally and therefore induces only a broadening of the spectrum while the asymmetric higher order term in the model enhances higher frequencies more than lower ones. Thus, the latter term induces a permanent upshift of the spectral mean. On the other hand, in contrast to the direct effect of wind forcing, wind can indirectly lead to frequency downshifts, due to dissipative effects such as wave breaking, or through amplification of the intrinsic spectral asymmetry of the Dysthe equation. Furthermore, the definitions of the up- and downshift in terms of peak- and mean frequencies, that are critical to relate our work to previous results, are highlighted and discussed.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figure