Building a Global Resource for Rapid Assessment of the Wave Climate

Abstract

In order to provide rapid access to reliable wave and wind climate information worldwide, a resource has been created combining: • a global offshore wind- and wave data-base, currently containing calibrated and validated spectral wave data from a wave hindcast model as well data from several satellite microwave sensors; • a simple but effective numerical model to predict nearshore wave conditions from the offshore spectra; • analysis tools to extract various climate parameters from the data such as scatter tables, extreme value analysis and persistency; • a web interface giving instantaneous access to the most commonly needed information. The resource is primarily intended for use in planning and design of operations typically requiring five years of data, but it an also be used for the design of certain structures, as there are now 16 years of significant wave height data from satellite radar altimeter available. This paper describes the components of the system and discusses their merits and limitations. We also present some results of the validation of the global satellite wave and wind data, of the global and regional wave model hindcasts, and of the nearshore wave transformation employed to obtain wave climate at sheltered or shallow-water sites.