Publications

Campos, R. and Guedes Soares C. (2016), “Comparison and Assessment of Three Wave Hindcasts in the North Atlantic Ocean”, Journal of Operational Oceanography, Vol. 9(1), pp. 26-44

Three wave hindcast data sets are compared in this paper and their differences, scatter indexes and correlation coefficients are analysed together with the a previous wind forcing assessment. The wave data includes one forecast historical data and two hindcasts: the hindcast of HIPOCAS, and ERA-40 both based on the WAM model and the historical wave database of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which resulted from WAVEWATCH III wave model forced by Global Forecast System (GFS) winds. ERA-40 and NOAA/NCEP cover the entire globe, while HIPOCAS concentrated on North Atlantic and European waters. Differences concerning all data and values above the 99th percentile level were calculated. In order to compare the described datasets, coincident period and area were determined, which corresponds to 1997 to 2001, latitudes between 20º and 65º North and longitudes between 50º West and 0º. The results show a close agreement among data sets for average conditions (non-extreme events). Under extreme conditions there is an increasing divergence among data sets that occurs mainly at mid-high latitudes during the winter. The highest waves under extreme conditions are given by HIPOCAS, followed by NCEP/NOAA and ERA-40. The overestimation of HIPOCAS and the underestimation of ERA-40, are strongly correlated to the wind input, as shown here.

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