Abstract
A long-term wave hindcast system, which is composed of MSM(Meso Scale Model) -based winds data sets and a backward ray tracing wave model is applied to estimate its accuracy at each of the 24 measurement stations around the Japanese coastal areas of the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Wind data sets with a high time and space resolution are produced by JMA(Japan Meteorological Agency) and released to the public domain. The wave model is operated on a nested grid with lower and higher space resolution. 12-year hindcast data of wave heights and wave periods at each station are compared with the measured data. Main findings are as follows. 1) The system yields a rather high quality estimate of wave statistics at each station of the concerned areas, but the wave height-related correlation coefficient(WHRCC) which ranges from 0.80 to 0.93 with a mean value of 0.85 is about 0.1 smaller on average compared to the Japan Sea case with a mean value of 0.95. This figure reflects the complicated wave conditions in the Pacific Ocean. 2)Accuracy of the system is higher at the East China Sea coasts of Japan followed by that at the western and northern coasts of Japan facing the Pacific Ocean and is lower at the central coasts. 3)The present system gives a WHRCC which is about 0.05 larger than the previous systems but does not yield a significant improvement for the estimation of wave periods.
