Long-term wave energy potential estimation in the Aegean and Ionian seas using dynamic downscaling and wave modelling techniques.

Abstract

The current work focuses on the use of dynamic downscaling methods based on 40 years ERA5 hindcast climatic data, for estimating the Wave energy potential for the Hellenic region. The main areas of interest are the Aegean and Ionian islands. The combination of local and reanalysis climatic data, has been used, as it is linking the mesoscale meteorology, with microclimatic weather phenomena. This way the driving geostrophic winds are effectively taken into account for the estimation of low altitude wind distribution. WRF is used to downscale the raw reanalysis ERA5 input data grid to a finer 3 × 3 Km results grid. This way, high computational accuracy can be achieved over the investigated regions, thus revealing finer wind scales phenomena. The downscaled climatic data are used as initial and boundary conditions for NOAA/NCEP's WAVEWATCH III to produce the required wave climate for the areas of interest over a finer grid. The computational results are compared with existing measurements and the significant wave height, wave period and direction distributions are used to assess in detail the potential wave energy distribution in specific areas of interest. The seasonal wave-climate variability and long-term periodicity are also investigated.