A note on analyzing nonlinear and nonstationary ocean wave data

Abstract The Huang–Hilbert transformation (HHT, composed of empirical mode decomposition and Hilbert transformation) can be applied to calculate the spectrum of nonlinear and nonstationary signals. The superior temporal and frequency resolutions of the HHT spectrum are illustrated by several examples in this article. The HHT analysis interprets wave nonlinearity in terms of frequency modulation instead of harmonic generation. The resulting spectrum contains much higher spectral energy at low frequency and sharper drop off at high frequency in comparison with the spectra derived from Fourier-based analysis methods (e.g. FFT and wavelet techniques). For wind generated waves, the spectral level of the Fourier spectrum is about two orders of magnitude smaller than that of the HHT spectrum at the first subharmonic of the peak frequency. The resulting average frequency as defined by the normalized first momentum of the spectrum is about 1.2 times higher in the Fourier-based spectra than that of the HHT spectrum.