I am working on a project where I have to approximately simulate the ocean waves. Currently, I am using a mesh modification approach. I am able to simulate low amplitude waves using the following equation:

yVal = Mathf.Sin(180 * Mathf.Deg2Rad / freqUpdated + Time.time * speedOFWave) * halfWaveHeight;

Yep, particle simulation is feasible i read. The surface on the open ocean is driven by the force, direction and fetch (length of effect) of the wind.

I can't (yet) help with programming these things, but breaking waves are rare on the open ocean, even if they tower many meters high due to strong winds that blow for many 100s of km. They occur at the transition between deep and shallow waters, where the orbital movement of water particles is compressed, e.g. near the continental shelves or in epicontinental or shallow seas. That's where the breaking news originate ?

Hydrological institutes and weather services have wave prediction models, maybe you can get more info there ...

Hi, not sure if you know but there are 4 great types of whater simulation:
(Navier-Stokes-based)
-Eulerian aproach (Jos Stam sable fluids and a few others are the main works regarding this 2D/3D)
-Shallow water equations (near shore waves and rivers 2.5D)
-Particle simulation (breacking waves, foam, etc)

(LBM-based somewat statistic-based approach)
Grid simulation with no breaking waves or other effects exclusive to particles

Some links with code or books for your consideration:

Fluid Simulation for Computer Graphics, Second Edition
code available for chapters of book 1 at
https://github.com/g-amador/incremental-fluids-java (I ported to java and include links to c++ original author code)

https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~rbridson/fluidsimulation/
http://matthias-mueller-fischer.ch/realtimephysics/