Publications

Rusu, L. and Guedes Soares, C. (2014), “Local data assimilation scheme for wave predictions close to the Portuguese ports”, Journal of Operational Oceanography, Vol. 7(2), pp. 45-57

The present work describes some developments in improving the wave predictions close to the most important Portuguese ports. A wave modelling system based on WAM, for the wave generation and SWAN, for the coastal transformation was implemented and focused on the Portuguese continental nearshore. The system has been operational since October 2008 and delivers daily forecast products corresponding to four days ahead. Validations of the results were performed against both buoys and satellite data. In order to improve the wave predictions in the nearshore areas neighbouring the Portuguese harbours targeted, two steps forward were performed and presented in this work. Thus, high resolution computational domains covering the vicinities of the ports were connected to the wave prediction system. As a further step, a data assimilation scheme was also implemented. The procedure considered uses the data provided by the buoys that are operating in the vicinity of the ports and give real time estimations of the significant wave height. A recursive SCM algorithm was developed to improve the model predictions close to the locations of the buoys. The assimilation of the buoy data was performed at three levels: time, geographical and spectral spaces. This procedure allows corrections to the boundary conditions considered for the high resolution computational domains implemented in the vicinity of the harbour areas. The results show that the operational wave prediction system becomes in this way more reliable and this concerns especially the cases when the wave predictions are usually less accurate, as for example the storm conditions.

You can download this paper from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1755876X.2014.11020158

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