CanESM5-derived ocean wave projections — Considerations for coarse resolution climate models

This study presents the first set of CanESM5-driven wave projections for two emission scenarios (SSP5-8.5 and SSP2-4.5) and two time periods for mid- and end-century. While coarse resolution climate models, like CanESM5, might be less attractive for development of ocean wave projections, their results are needed to explore the full range of inter-model uncertainty in CMIP6 projections. Considering the coarse resolution limitation, wave simulations were obtained with a proposed computationally efficient 2-step bias-correction approach that consists of (i) calibrating the wind-to-wave energy transfer in the ocean wave model to reduce the underestimation of extremes resulting from coarse resolution, and (ii) bias-correcting the surface winds with a multivariate bias-correction to reduce remaining systematic biases. Results showed overall good performance in comparison with state of the art reanalysis and satellite data. Resulting projections provide increased understanding of future changes in wave conditions, confirming previously reported global-scale changes, such as higher waves in the eastern tropical Pacific and lower waves in the North Atlantic. They also provide more detailed information for areas affected by sea ice conditions in comparison to the latest CMIP5-based wave ensembles, which is critical for the Arctic region, a hotspot for ocean wave changes. Moreover, while the largest changes are typically seen by the end-century under SSP5-8.5, this study reveals that for some variables and areas, such as the mean wave period, larger changes occur for lower warming levels as a result of competing driving factors. Finally, the presented projections can contribute to ongoing efforts to generate a large multi-model ensemble of wave projections based on CMIP6.