Ocean wave hindcast, using the WaveWatch III v4.08 wave model forced with NCEP CFSR hourly winds and daily sea ice, 1979-2010. The dataset contains spectral wave output at 3683 points, as well as gridded outputs on a global 0.4 degree (24 arcminute) grid, with nested Australian and western Pacific subgrids of 10 and 4 arcminutes resolution.

For further information, see Durrant, T.H., Greenslade, D.J.M., Hemer, M.A. & Trenham, C.E. (2014). A Global Wave Hindcast focussed on the Central and South Pacific, CAWCR Technical Report No. 070, Centre for Australian Climate and Weather Research (CAWCR) http://www.cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_070.pdf.

N.B. January 1979 is a "model spin-up" month and data from this month should not be used for research purposes.

Spectral wave parameters output: time; station; longitude; latitude; frequency; frequency1; frequency2 (centre, upper and lower bands); direction; Efth (sea surface wave directional variance spectral density); depth; u10m; udir (wind speed and direction 10m above surface); curr; currdir (sea water speed and direction). Gridded parameters output: longitude; latitude; time; MAPSTA (status map) ; U10; V10 (Eastward and Northward wind); CI (sea ice area fraction) ; hs (significant wave height); wl (mean wave length) ; t02 (mean wave period Tm02); t (mean period Tm01); tm0m1(mean period Tm0-1); CgE (wave energy flux); fp (peak wave frequency); dir (mean wave direction); spr (directional spread); dp (peak direction); hs0; hs1; hs2; hs3 (significant wave height partitions); tp0; tp1; tp2; tp3 (peak period partitions); lp0; lp1; lp2; lp3 (mean wave length partitions); th0; th1; th2; th3 (mean wave direction partitions); si0; si1; si2; si3 (directional spread partitions); ws0; ws1; ws2; ws3 (wind sea fraction partitions); wsf (wind sea fraction); pnr (number of wave partitions); dtd (dynamic time step); uust; vust (eastward, northward friction velocities); cha (Charnock coefficient); faw (wind to wave energy flux); utaw; vtaw (eastward, northward wave supported wind stress); utwa; vtwa (eastward, northward wave to wind stress); wcc (whitecap coverage); Sxx; Syy; Sxy (radiation stress components); utwo; vtwo (eastward, northward wave to ocean stress); uuss; vuss (eastward, northward surface stokes drift).

Lineage: The hindcast was performed using the WAVEWATCH III(TM) model version 4.08. The model was run on a 0.4 x 0.4° global grid with a series of nested grids of 10 arcminutes (~18km) down to 4 arcminutes (~7km) in the Western Pacific and Australian regions. Wave spectra were discretised over 29 frequencies exponentially spaced from 0.038 Hz to 0.5 Hz and 24 directions with a constant 15° directional resolution. All grids were forced with Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) surface winds at 0.3° spatial and hourly temporal resolution. Hourly sea ice concentrations from the CFSR data set were also used to define the ice edge. Data output in NetCDF4 format.

Credit: Input data: NCEP CFSR surface winds and sea ice, http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/cfsr/. Wave model used: WaveWatch III, http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/wavewatch/wavewatch.shtml The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR) is a partnership between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO.  This project was funded by DCCEE and AusAID and undertaken jointly by CSIRO and the BoM. Model run on the Bureau of Meteorology SOLAR facility.

This output was produced as part of PACCSAP Activity 1.4.3: High resolution wind-wave climate and projections of change in the Pacific region for coastal hazard assessments.

Access the dataset via the CSIRO Data Access Portal.