WAVE4M - DEVELOPMENT OF A WAVE FORECASTING SYSTEM FOR THE MALDIVIAN ARCHIPELAGO

The project is aimed at developing a high-resolution wave forecasting system for the Maldivian Archipelago. The system is based on the wave model WAVEWATCHIII and consists of two nested grids: the outer grid covers the area from 70°E to /8°E and from 3°S to 9°N and has the horizontal resolution of 1/32°, the inner grid is limited to the area including the archipelago and has the resolution of 1/128°. The higher resolution model uses boundary conditions consisting of the 2D spectral wave data derived from the outer model.

The system was initially validated on a few test cases characterized by different weather conditions throughout the comparison of wave heights with satellites data. The system makes use of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) operational surface wind forecasts and daily provides 5-day wave forecasts on the two different computational grids. The simulations are run in operational mode since July 2021 and the wave height results are periodically checked against the analysis fields provided by ECMWF itself. The hourly fields of significant wave height and mean wave period are posted daily on the website and files containing the outputs of the two models are made available in the standard netcdf format via ftp to the staff of the Maldives Meteorological Service.

ENEA Activities:

• Development of the operational system for the wave forecast over the Maldives archipelago.
• Training of the Maldivian technicians