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Comparison of numerical hindcasted severe waves with Doppler radar measurements in the North Sea

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Abstract

Severe sea states in the North Sea present a challenge to wave forecasting systems and a threat to offshore installations such as oil and gas platforms and offshore wind farms. Here, we study the ability of a third-generation spectral wave model to reproduce winter sea states in the North Sea. Measured and modeled time series of integral wave parameters and directional wave spectra are compared for a 12-day period in the winter of 2013–2014 when successive severe storms moved across the North Atlantic and the North Sea. Records were obtained from a Doppler radar and wave buoys. The hindcast was performed with the WAVEWATCH III model (Tolman 2014) with high spectral resolution both in frequency and direction. A good general agreement was obtained for integrated parameters, but discrepancies were found to occur in spectral shapes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to STATOIL, to Dr. Anne Karin Magnusson, and Dr. Magnar Reistad from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute who kindly supplied the MIROS radar data. The WW3 simulations were conducted on the Fionn supercomputer at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing. This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the research project ERC-2011-AdG 290562-MULTIWAVE and Science Foundation Ireland under grant number SFI/12/ERC/E2227 (http://www.ercmultiwave.eu/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Statistics, UCD Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Sonia Ponce de León, João H. Bettencourt & Frederic Dias

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  1. Sonia Ponce de León
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  2. João H. Bettencourt
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  3. Frederic Dias
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Correspondence to Sonia Ponce de León.

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Responsible Editor: Jose-Henrique Alves

This article is part of the Topical Collection on the 14th International Workshop on Wave Hindcasting and Forecasting in Key West, Florida, USA, November 8–13, 2015

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Ponce de León, S., Bettencourt, J.H. & Dias, F. Comparison of numerical hindcasted severe waves with Doppler radar measurements in the North Sea. Ocean Dynamics 67, 103–115 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-016-1014-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-016-1014-3

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