Assessing Climate Change in the North Atlantic Wave Regimes

Abstract

An improved understanding of the present and future marine climatology is necessary for numerous activities, such as operation of offshore structures, optimization of ship routes and the evaluation of wave energy resources. To produce global wave information, the WW3 wave model was forced with wind and ice-cover data from an RCP8.5 EC-Earth system integration for two 30-year time slices. The first covering the periods from 1980 to 2009 represents the present climate and the second, covering the periods from 2070–2099, represents the climate in the end of the 21st century. Descriptive statistics of wind and wave parameters are obtained for different 30-year time slices. Regarding wind, magnitude and direction will be used. For wave, significant wave height (of total sea and swell), mean wave period, peak period, mean wave direction and energy will be investigated. Changes from present to future climate are evaluated, regarding both mean and extreme events. Maps of the theses statistics are presented. The long-term monthly joint distribution of significant wave heights and peak periods is generated. Changes from present to future climate are assessed, comparing the statistics between time slices.