1. Long-term wave hindcasts

It is becoming increasingly important to understand Earth’s climate because of the potential impact of ongoing climate change on our society. The nature of the ocean surface wave climate has broad implications for coastal society because large populations live near the coastline; therefore an understanding of wave climate is important. Atmospheric reanalysis data is one of main tools available for investigating the climate of previous decades. In addition, a wave climate hindcast based on atmospheric reanalysis is useful for wave climate studies and is applicable to a wide range of coastal engineering projects. Therefore, global and regional (Japan) wave climate hindcast data are provided here.

We conducted long-term wave hindcasts nesting from global (resolution 60km) to Japan (7km) from 1979-2012. The used spectrum wave model is WAVEWATCH III (version 4.16) and the atmospheric forcing to wave model is JRA-55.

Data description

The wave climate hindcast was conducted using the spectral wave model WAVEWATCH III. WAVEWATCH III was forced with six-hourly surface wind data and the monthly sea ice fields by JRA-55 atmospheric reanalysis data. The spatial resolution of JRA-55 is approximately 60 km. The three domains were determined using a nesting process for the global domain (spatial resolution:60 km), the Western North Pacific domain (17km), and Japanese coastal domain (7km).

Output variables

  • Annual mean
    • significant wave height, mean wave periods, mean wave direction
  • Annual maximum
    • significant wave height

There are two differrent definitiono of significant wave height. Please read Shimura and Mori (2019) in detail.

Download data

Please download data from following links. The format of data is netcdf.

Terms and Conditions of Data Use

Please cite following reference when you use the data. It would be nice if user send us the results of paper.

This data can be used freely including commercial use. Permission to redistribute the data is granted. Please understand that even if you suffer a disadvantage due to the use of the data, the supplier shall not be held liable for any loss or damage.