Operational Wave Prediction System at Environment Canada: Going Global to Improve Regional Forecast Skill

Abstract

A global deterministic wave prediction system (GDWPS) is used to improve regional forecasts of waves off the Canadian coastline and help support the practice of safe marine activities in Canadian waters. The wave model has a grid spacing of 1 /48 with spectral resolution of 36 frequency bins and 36 directional bins. The wave model is driven with hourly 10-m winds generated by the operational global atmospheric prediction system. Ice conditions are updated every three hours using the ice concentration forecasts generated by the Global IceOcean Prediction System. Wave forecasts are evaluated over two periods from 15 , as well as over select cases during the fall of 2012. The global system is shown to improve wave forecast skill over regions where forecasts were previously produced using limited-area models only. The usefulness of a global expansion is demonstrated for large swell events affecting the northeast Pacific. The first validation of a Canadian operational wave forecast system in the Arctic is presented. Improvements in the representation of forecast wave fields associated with tropical cyclones are also demonstrated. Finally, the GDWPS is shown to result in gains of at least 12 h of lead time.

Evaluating the Leeway Coefficient of Ocean Drifters Using Operational Marine Environmental Prediction Systems

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An Operational Wave System within the Monitoring Program of a Mediterranean Beach

“…Under the same lead-time range, the relative error passes from 17 to 28% at La Revellata buoy and from 28 to 35% at Poetto beach. This deterioration of the wave forecast accuracy with the lead-time is likely to be related to larger uncertainties in the wind forcing fields [10,37]. Despite the accuracy loss, the relative error remains under moderate values, confirming the reliability of the prediction for the time window covered by the simulation.…”

An Efficient Method for Simulating Typhoon Waves Based on a Modified Holland Vortex Model

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