[1] A combined high-resolution atmospheric downscaling and wave hindcast based on the ERA-40 reanalysis covering the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and the Barents Sea is presented. The period covered is from September 1957 to August 2002. The dynamic atmospheric downscaling is performed as a series of short prognostic runs initialized from a blend of ERA-40 and the previous prognostic run to preserve the fine-scale surface features from the high-resolution model while maintaining the large-scale synoptic field from ERA-40. The nested WAM wave model hindcast consists of a coarse 50 km model covering the North Atlantic forced with ERA-40 winds and a nested 10-11 km resolution model forced with downscaled winds. A comparison against in situ and satellite observations of wind and sea state reveals significant improvement in mean values and upper percentiles of wind vectors and the significant wave height over ERA-40. Improvement is also found in the mean wave period. ERA-40 is biased low in wind speed and significant wave height, a bias which is not reproduced by the downscaling. The atmospheric downscaling also reproduces polar lows, which cannot be resolved by ERA-40, but the lows are too weak and short-lived as the downscaling is not capable of capturing their full life cycle.

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The objective of this study is to compute 100-yr return value estimates of significant wave height using a new hindcast developed by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. This regional hindcast covers the northeast Atlantic and spans the period 1958-2009.The return value estimates are based upon three different stationary models commonly applied in extreme value statistics: the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution, the joint GEV distribution for the r largest-order statistic (rLOS), and the generalized Pareto (GP) distribution. Here, the qualitative differences between the models and their corresponding confidence intervals are investigated.

The objective of the EuroROSE (European Radar Ocean Sensing) project was to combine area covering ground-based remote-sensed wave and current data with high-resolution numerical forecast models to provide nowcasts and forecasts for coastal marine operators. Two experiments to test and to demonstrate the system took place: one on the coast of Norway, north of Bergen in March 2000 and the second on the north coast of Spain at Gijon in October -November 2000. Qualitative and quantitative intercomparisons of the wave measurements and wave model products from these experiments are presented. These include measurements using the Wellen Radar (WERA) high-frequency (HF) radar, the WaMoS (Wave Monitoring System) Xband radar, a directional Waverider and output from the WAM wave model. Comparisons are made of the full directional spectra and of various derived parameters. This is the first-ever intercomparison between HF and X-band radar wave measurements and between either of these and WAM. It has provided a data set covering a much wider range of storm and swell conditions than had been available previously for radar wave-measurement validation purposes and has clarified a number of limitations of the radars as well as providing a lot of very useful radar wave data for future model-validation applications. The intercomparison has led to improvements in the data quality control procedures of both WaMoS and WERA. The two radar sytems measured significant wave height with mean biases of 3% and 6%, respectively, and mean direction differences of less than 2j in both cases. Limitations in the WAM model implementation are also discussed. D

Wind field ensembles from six CMIP5 models force wave model time slices of the northeast Atlantic over the last three decades of the 20th and the 21st centuries. The future wave climate is investigated by considering the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios. The CMIP5 model selection is based on their ability to reconstruct the present (1971–2000) extratropical cyclone activity, but increased spatial resolution has also been emphasized. In total, the study comprises 35 wave model integrations, each about 30 years long, in total more than 1000 years. Here annual statistics of significant wave height are analyzed, including mean parameters and upper percentiles. There is general agreement among all models considered that the mean significant wave height is expected to decrease by the end of the 21st century. This signal is statistically significant also for higher percentiles, but less evident for annual maxima. The RCP8.5 scenario yields the strongest reduction in wave height. The exception to this is the north western part of the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea, where receding ice cover gives longer fetch and higher waves. The upper percentiles are reduced less than the mean wave height, suggesting that the future wave climate has higher variance than the historical period.