Abstract
It is shown that when short wind-generated gravity waves lose energy by breaking (or other dissipative processes) near the crests of longer waves, the loss is supplied partly by the longer wave because of the second-order radiation-stress interaction. This process is discussed in detail analytically and also from energy considerations with use of the concept of radiation stress. The results are applied to the attenuation of swell by a local wind-generated wave field, and it is shown that the rate of decrease of the amplitude a