We examine the long-term evolution of a random wind wave field generated by constant forcing, by comparing numerical simulations of the kinetic equation and direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the dynamical equations. While the integral characteristics of the spectra are in reasonably good agreement, the spectral shapes differ considerably at large times, the DNS spectral shape being in much better agreement with field observations. Varying the number of resonant and approximately resonant wave interactions in the DNS numerical scheme, we show that when the ratio of nonlinear and linear parts of the Hamiltonian tends to zero, the DNS spectral shape approaches the shape predicted by the kinetic equation. We attribute the discrepancies between the kinetic equation modeling, on one side, and the DNS and observations, on the other, to the neglect of non-Gaussianity in the derivation of the kinetic equation.

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• Oceanography
• Surface gravity waves
• Weak turbulence