Wind and wave variability in re-analysis models and satellite measurements in the North Atlantic

My Masters project involved looking at wind and wave variability in re-analysis models and satellite measurements in the North Atlantic, supervised by Dr. David Cromwell, Dr. Christine Gommenginger and Prof. Meric Srokosz at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS).

Abstract: Winds and ocean surface gravity waves play a major role in many engineering and environmental issues both in the open ocean and in coastal zones. It is therefore essential to improve our knowledge on the spatial and temporal variability of the winds and wave climate.

This study aims at investigating this variability in the North Atlantic for the period 1992-2009, from ECMWF re-analysis models, ERA-40 and ERA-Interim and new long-term calibrated gridded satellite altimeter datasets developed at NOCS.

ERA-Interim gives larger maximum values from wind speed and significant wave height (swh) compared to ERA-40, but the swh are lower than those observed in TOPEX data (1993-2002).In the longer time series (1995-2008) the first empirical orthogonal function (EOF) is related to the East Atlantic Pattern (EAP) and the second EOF to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), suggesting a decrease in the NAO's influence on the dominant mode of variability in recent years. The wind speed in the North Atlantic is observed to show teleconnections from the tropical Pacific by correlating the anomalies against the Multivariate ENSO index anomalies, as an area of positive correlation in the western tropical North Atlantic with a lag of 4-6 months occurs. These teleconnections are also observed in swh and wave period.


  • Project talk These slides give an overview of the work undertaken in this project.
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See also