 The first ocean wave models were developed in the 1960s and 1970s . These models had the tendency to overestimate the role of wind in wave development and underplayed wave interactions . A lack of knowledge concerning how waves interacted among each other , assumptions regarding a maximum wave height , and deficiencies in computer power limited the performance of the models . After experiments were performed in 1968 , 1969 , and 1973 , wind input from the Earth 's atmosphere was weighted more accurately in the predictions . A second generation of models was developed in the 1980s , but they could not realistically model swell nor depict wind @-@ driven waves ( also known as wind waves ) caused by rapidly changing wind fields , such as those within tropical cyclones . This caused the development of a third generation of wave models from 1988 onward . 
