MODELLED AND OBSERVED IMPACT OF THE APRIL 2021 SOUTHERN OCEAN STORM

Abstract

Wind-wave extreme events are a major driver of coastal erosion (Lowe et al., 2010). As such, accurate estimates of metocean extremes are crucial to implement efficient and resilient coastal defense strategies. Global wave reanalysis datasets are commonly used to estimate wind and wave statistical properties for coastal engineering purposes. However, despite the impressive accuracy of such datasets in representing average significant wave height conditions (global biases against observations of less than 5 cm), models usually underestimate metocean extremes (Cavaleri et al. 2009; Cavaleri et al., 2020). To obtain an understanding of model performance under extreme conditions, we focus on a single storm event generated in the Southern Ocean on April 7th, 2021.