[1] Field observations of swash and ocean waves show that runup saturation at infragravity frequencies (<0.05 Hz) can occur under mild offshore energy conditions if the beach slope is sufficiently gentle. Infragravity saturation was observed for higher-frequency (>0.025-0.035 Hz) infragravity waves, where typically less than 5% of the (linear) energy flux was reflected from the beach and where, similar to the sea swell band, the swash energy was independent of offshore wave energy. The infragravity frequency range of saturation was determined by the tide, with saturation extending to lower frequencies at low tide when the local beach face slope over the concave-shaped profile was gentler. Runup was strongly dominated by infragravity frequencies, which accounted on average for 96% of the runup variance, and its energy levels were entirely consistent with strong infragravity wave dissipation observed in the surfzone, particularly when including the nonlinear contributions to the wave energy fluxes. The infragravity wave dissipation was strongly associated with breaking of sea swell waves, which abruptly decreased nonlinear transfers to infragravity frequencies and made infragravity dissipation prevail over forcing within the breaking region. Our observations show evidence of nonlinear interactions involving infragravity and high-frequency, harmonic waves and suggest that these harmonics could play a role in the wave energy balance near the shoreline on low-sloping, dissipative beaches.Citation: Guedes, R. M. C., K. R. Bryan, and G. Coco (2013), Observations of wave energy fluxes and swash motions on a lowsloping, dissipative beach,

[1] Swash hydrodynamics were investigated on an intermediate beach using runup data obtained from video images. Under mild, near-constant, offshore wave conditions, the presence of a sandbar and the tidally controlled water depth over its crest determined whether most of the incoming waves broke before reaching the shoreline. This forced a change in the pattern of wave energy dissipation across the surf zone between low and high tide, which was reflected by changes to swash on time scales of a few hours. Significant runup height (Rs, defined as 4 times the standard deviation of the waterline time series), was found to vary by a factor of 2 between low tide, when most of the waves were breaking over the sandbar (Rs/Hs ≈ 1.5, where Hs is the offshore significant wave height) and high tide, when the waves were barely breaking (Rs/Hs ≈ 2.7). The increase in wave energy dissipation during low tide was also associated with changes in swash maxima distribution, a decrease in mean swash period, and increasing energy at infragravity frequencies. Bispectral analysis suggested that this infragravity modulation might have been connected with the presence of secondary waves.

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