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Publications
Ponce de Leon, S., Bettencourt, J. H. and Dias, F. (2020), “Assessment of severe waves with satellite altimetry data and Doppler radar observations in the North Sea”, European Space Agency (ESA), 24-29 September, Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores Archipelago, Portugal
We revisit a previous study of the North Sea winter storms (Ponce de León et al., 2017) in order to compare numerical simulations using a spectral wave model (WAVEWATCH III, Tolman (2014)) with Doppler radar measurements and satellite altimetry data from different missions (JASON2, SARAL, CRYOSAT). The hindcast was performed for 2 months and 15 days for the winter of 2013-2014 when successive severe storms moved across the North Atlantic and the North Sea. The wave model was driven by hourly wind fields from the ECMWF operational forecast. Measured and modeled time series of integral wave parameters and directional wave spectra are compared for a 12-day period in the winter of 2013–2014. A good general agreement was obtained for the integrated parameters, but inconsistencies were found to occur in spectral shapes. The frequency spectra of the model were compared to spectra measured by the radar by means of the root mean square (RMS) difference and a good agreement was found in general although the RMS difference showed large values at the peak of two major storms. These differences were attributed to a slight shift in the peak frequency. Another milder event was characterized by an underestimation of the peak spectral energy. In that case, the local process was dominated by wave-wave nonlinear interactions as an analysis of the source terms showed.
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