Wave-current and wind climate in the remote foreshore of a non-tidal sea in view of field investigations.

Abstract

The paper presents results of around 14-month long field survey monitoring wave-current and wind parameters at a remote foreshore location representative of the south Baltic Sea. Water surface elevations and superficial flow velocities were measured using a wave-current buoy moored at a depth of 18 m, about 2.8 km from the shoreline, while wind data were collected with an anemometer mounted on a nearby land mast and then recalculated to obtain the wind velocity over the sea. The analysis shows that the predominating direction of wave propagation is from W to E while the wind-driven currents are mostly directed from WSW to ENE. The extreme wave heights amounted to H_s = 4.36 m and H_max = 7.33 m while the maximum measured superficial flow velocity amounted to u_meas = 1.09 m/s. Such strong superficial currents had never been recorded in the region. The extreme wind speed recorded in the survey period was equal to W_sea = 19.93 m/s. The wind-driven superficial flow velocity was successfully modelled by a simple approach yielding a satisfactory agreement with the measured quantities. The presented novel findings have been achieved using a multi-method approach, comprising viewing of the time series, rose plots and Dot Products.