A methodology for statistical mean wave climate regime characterisation in oceanic islands: the case of the southern coast of Tenerife

Abstract

Oceanic islands of volcanic origin tend to have peculiar characteristics, such as: exposure to many wave directions; grouping in archipelagos; steep coastal slopes; and small coastal shelves. All these features require certain considerations in wave climate studies. These types of studies, when wave spectra are not available and have to be performed with parametric data, can be unreliable without an adequate systematic treatment. In this work we propose a methodology consisting of pre-classification according to the peak period and subsequent separation into different sectors according to the geographical fetch. The island of Tenerife is the case study, and in particular the waves reaching its southern coast. Data from the existing deep-water buoy have been used in this work. A range of fetch lengths between the few miles of distance to the neighbouring islands, and more than 5,500 nautical miles that separate it from the Antarctic region have been considered. The dominant type of waves and the direction of provenance in each season of the year have been characterised. The proposed methodology has been designed to be applied to any oceanic archipelago with similar characteristics to those mentioned above.