Assessment of reliability of extreme wave height prediction models

Abstract

Extreme waves influence coastal engineering activities and have an immense geophysical implication. Therefore, their study, observation and extreme wave prediction are decisive for planning of mitigation measures against natural coastal hazards, ship routing, design of coastal and offshore structures. In this study, the estimates of design wave heights associated with return period of 30 and 100 years are dealt with in detail. The design wave height is estimated based on four different models to obtain a general and reliable model. Different locations are considered to perform the analysis: four sites in Indian waters (two each in Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea), one in the Mediterranean Sea and two in North America (one each in North Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Maine). For the Indian water domain, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) global atmospheric reanalysis ERA-Interim wave hindcast data covering a period of 36 years have been utilized for this purpose. For the locations in Mediterranean Sea and North America, both ERA-Interim wave hindcast and buoy data are considered. The reasons for the variation in return value estimates of the ERA-Interim data and the buoy data using different estimation models are assessed in detail.