Recent Advances in Wave Modelling for the North Sea and German Bight

摘要

The ocean wave modelling has shown impressive developments, both on the theoretical aspects as in the quality of the results available to users. The state-of-the-art development of the WAM wave model for forecasts applications at operational services and for hindcasts and climate assessments for the North Sea and the German Bight is presented here. The ocean waves control the exchange of energy, momentum, heat, moisture, gas, etc. between the ocean and the atmosphere in the earth system. The impact of waves on currents and water levels in coastal areas is demonstrated. Therefore first steps towards a fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean model have been carried out. The synergy between wave observations and models for the North Sea and German Bight is increased on the road to improving the ocean state estimate and predictions in the coastal areas and generating up-to-date information, products and knowledge. Sea state reconstructions and climate scenarios computations with the WAM model have created a huge interest to use the data in industrial applications.