Wave Climatology in Coastal Maine for Aquaculture and Other Applications

Abstract

Wind waves represent a significant hydrodynamic factor affecting many oceanographic studies such as sediment transport, design of structures, etc. In coastal Maine, wave information is needed, among other applications, for aquaculture-related activities. As few data sources exist, a question that confronts scientists pertains to the magnitudes of typical and extreme wave conditions at various times. To address this, numerical modeling was performed for a period of six and a half years (7/99-12/05) on a continuous basis by coupling National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's outer ocean predictions to two coastal, high-resolution, regional domain grids encompassing the Penobscot Bay and Machias Bay regions where aquaculture activity is prevalent and expanding. As the modeling involves uncertainties because of bathymetric and wind field representations, their effect on the results was explored. It was found that although the uncertainties could create inaccuracies in real-time forecasts, their effect on the development of climatogies was minimal. Average modeled significant wave heights are found to vary between 0.6 and 1.5 m in the sub-domains. The maximum conditions are of the order of 6.5 m in the outer parts of the sub-domains and occurred in September and December. Estimated waveinduced bottom velocities were found in many areas to be in excess of the published estimates of resuspension thresholds for net-pen wastes. Estimates of "extreme" wave conditions, corresponding to a recurrence interval of 30 years (representing the nominal design life of the cage), were found to vary between 2 and 7 m in the modeled areas. Detailed contour maps have been developed for sitespecific characterization of the wave climate.

Wave climatology in the Apostle Islands, Lake Superior

“…The SWAN wave model has been successfully applied to examine coastal wave climates [ Panchang et al ., ; Stopa et al ., ]. In this study, the resulting wave climate shows that offshore wave energy is attenuated at the exterior of the Apostle Islands with significantly smaller SWHs and PWPs in the interior.…”

“…In the past, models for hindcasting wave data sets have been successfully applied to obtain wave climate statistics such as annual means, seasonal variability, return level estimates, correlation with atmospheric cycles, and long‐term trends on both global [ Sterl and Caires , ; Chawla et al ., ; Stopa et al ., ] and regional scales [ Panchang et al ., ; Waters et al ., ; Dodet et al ., ]. In the Great Lakes, hindcasting of the wave climate has been led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Wave Information Studies (WIS) project [ Resio and Vincent , ; Hubertz et al ., ; Jensen et al ., ].…”

Using physical environmental parameters and cage engineering design within GIS-based site suitability models for marine aquaculture

“…A pilot study for aqua- culture site optimization in Loch Roag, Scotland, highlighted that 'adequate specification and siting of salmon farm installations in respect of hydrography in particular of wave climate' should be taken into account (Tyrer & Bass 2005, p. 40). Whilst there is a well-established understanding of how wave height will impact aquaculture structures (Panchang et al 2008), other wave climate factors such as wave period require further investigation in this respect. Pérez et al (2003a) interpolated minimal available data obtained from fixed WANA points to develop a wave climate layer.…”

The Effect of Declustering in the r-Largest Maxima Model for the Estimation of HS-Design Values

“…Let us note that although this method resembles very much the r-largest maxima model, it is actually based on different principles. Under the same concept, in [31] the parameters of the GEV distribution were estimated using the four largest monthly maxima of each year.…”