Comparative Study of Performance of Wind Wave Model: Wavewatch—Modified By New Source Function amg

With the aim of asse­ssing the merits of the new source func­tion prop­osed earlier in Poln­ikov (2005), it was tested and vali­dated by means of the modi­fica­tion of the well known model WAVE­WATCH-III. Asse­ssm­ent was done on the basis of comp­aring the wave simu­lat­ion results found from both models against the buoy data obta­ined in three oceanic regions: eastern and western parts of the North Atla­ntic, and the Barenz Sea. First of all, inco­rpor­ation of the new source func­tion into the nume­rical codes of WAVE­WATCH was done, and this modi­fied version of WAVE­WATCH was fitted and tested by stan­dard tests. On the basis of these results some phys­ical conc­lusi­ons were drawn. Then, soph­isti­cated fitting of the modi­fied model was carried out, using the obse­rvat­ion data of 19 buoys obta­ined in two regions of the North Atla­ntic for a period of 30 days at 1-hour time inte­rvals. After this, the stan­dard vali­dat­ion of both models was cont­inued on the basis of the 8-month hist­ori­cal data, corr­espo­nding to 12 buoys located in the western part of the North Atla­ntic. Finally, comp­arat­ive vali­dat­ion of the models was done against the wave obse­rvat­ions obta­ined at one buoy in the Barenz Sea for a period of 3 years at 6-hour time inte­rvals. Esti­mati­ons of simu­lat­ion accu­racy were carried out for the three para­met­ers of wind waves: sign­ific­ant wave height, Hs, peak wave period, Tp, and mean wave period, Tm. Comp­arat­ive anal­ysis of these esti­mati­ons was carried out for the orig­inal and modi­fied model WAVE­WATCH. The adva­ntage of the modi­fied model was reve­aled, with an incr­ease of simu­lat­ion accu­racy for Hs by 20 to 50% for more than 70% of the buoys cons­ide­red. Addi­tion­ally, it was found that the speed of calc­ulat­ion was incr­eased by 15%.