Wind-wave simulation in South China Sea: Preliminary results of model evaluation using different wind forcing

Abstract

Two different sets of wind data QuikSCAT/NCEP scatterometerwind and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) wind were used to evaluate wind-wave characteristic by using the NOAA WaveWatch III during the northeast monsoon. These two datasets have been widely used. The spatial and temporal resolution for both datasets are 0.5° by 0.5° and 6 hourly, respectively. Statistical analyses such as correlation of wind speed, root mean square error (RMSE), bias and correlation coefficient have been carried out in this study. The wind speed and directionof both winds are almost similar for the whole domain. The wind speed correlation of both winds is 0.94. The correlation of significant wave height between QuikSCAT and AWAC data is 0.80 while for CFSR is 0.97. CFSR wind data shows better results compared to QuikSCAT. The lower correlation for the QuickSCAT could be due to the fact that the scatterometer wind is sensitive to rain hence there could be contamination in the QuikSCAT data as precipitation is high during the northeast monsoon. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.