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Spectral wave characteristics in the coastal waters of the central west coast of India during tropical cyclone Kyarr

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Abstract

The study presents the assessment of spectral wave conditions in the coastal waters of the central west coast of India based on data from waverider buoys at two locations during the passage of tropical cyclone Kyarr. Due to the impact of the tropical cyclone, at 15 m water depth, the annual maximum significant wave height of 5.1 m occurred in October for the first time in the last 42 years. Though the cyclone track was close to the location Vengurla, maximum energy waves are observed at Karwar, a location ~ 125 km south of Vengurla due to the super-imposition of the cyclonic waves with the comparatively high energy long-period swells existing at Karwar. The high-frequency slope of the wave spectra becomes steep due to cyclone with a value close to − 4. Wave spectrum during cyclones is better represented by the JONSWAP spectrum with modified parameters, and the maximum value of peak enhancement factor observed during the cyclone period agrees with the mean value (3.3) suggested by the JONSWAP study. The wave heights obtained from the numerical model are also compared with the measured values. The spatial variation in waves has been investigated using the ERA5 reanalysis data.

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Data availability

The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the two reviewers for the comments and suggestions which improved the contents of the paper. The first author wishes to acknowledge CSIR for the award of Senior Research Fellowship. This work is done as part of the Doctoral thesis of the first author registered with Goa University, Goa and is an NIO contribution 6862.

Funding

This research is funded by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi. The wave data at Karwar was collected under the program funded by the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO)-Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ocean Engineering, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), Dona Paula, 403004, Goa, India

    M. Anjali Nair, M. M. Amrutha & V. Sanil Kumar

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  1. M. Anjali Nair
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  2. M. M. Amrutha
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  3. V. Sanil Kumar
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the idea and scope of the paper. MAN and VSK performed the analyses and wrote the manuscript. MMA provided help with numerical modelling and data analysis, discussed the results and contributed to the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to V. Sanil Kumar.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Amin Chabchoub

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Nair, M.A., Amrutha, M.M. & Kumar, V.S. Spectral wave characteristics in the coastal waters of the central west coast of India during tropical cyclone Kyarr. Ocean Dynamics 72, 151–168 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-022-01496-x

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