Establishment of wave climate datasets: Case study for the Maritime Silk Road

Abstract

How to extract useful and key information from the original big wave data with large volume and low information density and establish a wave climate datasets is still in a blank status, which is also urgently needed in the ocean navigation, deep sea development, marine resource development, offshore construction, and disaster prevention and mitigation, etc. Based on the ERA-interim wave data for 1979–2018 and ERA-40 wave reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), this study adopts the climate statistical analysis methods to establish the first open and public wave climate dataset for the Maritime Silk Road, systematically including the prevailing wave direction and significant wave height (SWH), wave period, swell index (SI), rough sea occurrence, wave direction occurrence, co-occurrence of wave height and wave direction, co-occurrence of wave height and wave period, and extreme wave height. It is hoped that the results can provide a data support for the safe and efficient deployment of marine development and construction.