New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Estimates of wave height data for New Zealand waters by numerical modelling

ANDREW K. LAING

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research Ltd, P. O. Box 14-901, Kilbirnie Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract A procedure has been developed for estimating the wave climate in New Zealand waters. The key elements are the specification of surface wind fields and the diagnosis of wave conditions using a numerical wave model. Wave data have been generated for a period in 1989 and the deduced significant wave heights have been analysed. The distributions at a number of selected sites indicate wave features consistent with existing knowledge of the longer-term wave climate - despite differences between wind characteristics for this season and the longer-term norm as derived from ship observations. The wave-fields were partitioned into wind-sea and swell components and the probability distributions for each feature were also found to be consistent with longer-term studies.

Keywords wave climate; wave modelling; hindcast; wave height; climate change

New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 1993: Vol. 27: The Royal Society of New Zealand 1993
Received 31 July 1992; accepted 1 February 1993

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1301K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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