Correlation Analysis between Wave Power and Seawater Temperature and Salinity

摘要

Although it has been studied extensively for more than four decades, same as wind and solar energy, wave energy harvesting technology has lagged significantly when compared with other renewable energy technologies. Wave energy is directly affected by wave period and wave height; however, it is also very important to fully understand the correlation between wave energy with other factors. Physical properties of seawater not only influence the behavior of ocean circulation, but also directly or indirectly affect the generation of wave energy. In this project, five years of data related to salinity, surface temperature, and other meteorological factors used for calculating wave energy were analyzed. A geographical information system based spatial and temporal analysis method, which was developed by integrating MATLAB and ArcGIS spatial analysis functions, was used to determine the correlations between selected factors and wave energy. There are strong positive and negative correlations between these two factors and wave power in the GoM, while the regions with positive and negative correlations are mixed up in the most areas of the GoM without clear boundaries between each other. The results also show that the correlation patterns between two factors and wave power are different with inconsistent monthly and seasonal patterns.