Abstract
Abstract. The spatial and temporal variability of extreme wave climate in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea is assessed using a 31-year wave model hindcast. Seasonality accounts for 50 % of the extreme wave height variability in the North Atlantic Ocean and up to 70 % in some areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Once seasonality is filtered out, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Scandinavian index are the dominant large-scale atmospheric patterns that control the interannual variability of extreme waves during winters in the North Atlantic Ocean; to a lesser extent, the East Atlantic Oscillation also modulates extreme waves in the central part of the basin. In the Mediterranean Sea, the dominant modes are the East Atlantic and East Atlantic–Western Russia modes, which act strongly during their negative phases. A new methodology for analyzing the atmospheric signature associated with extreme waves is proposed. The method obtains the composites of significant wave height (SWH), mean sea level pressure (MSLP), and 10 m height wind velocity (U10) using the instant when specific climatic indices have a stronger correlation with extreme waves.
Highlights
The accurate assessment of extreme wind-wave conditions is essential for human activities, e.g., maritime traffic and wave energy generation, and is a major source of coastal hazards
These results are in accordance with those obtained by Izaguirre et al (2010) and Gleeson et al (2019), who show that extreme waves in the North Atlantic are related to the positive phase of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the negative of East Atlantic (EA) and Scandinavian pattern (SCAND)
The composite for U10 and mean sea level pressure (MSLP) built using location no. 1 (Fig. 9a) shows the typical configuration associated with the positive NAO phase that is characterized by low pressures across high latitudes in the North Atlantic and high pressures over the central North Atlantic, the eastern United States, and western Europe
Summary
The accurate assessment of extreme wind-wave conditions is essential for human activities, e.g., maritime traffic and wave energy generation, and is a major source of coastal hazards. V. Morales-Márquez et al.: Extreme waves and climatic patterns of variability ability in the North Atlantic and is often defined as the sea level pressure difference between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High (Hurrell et al, 2003). We extend earlier studies by analyzing the short- and long-term variability of extreme waves in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean Sea, for diagnostic purposes and to be able to provide statistical prognostics of extremes waves associated with the most important climatic indices.
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