Effects of Sampling between Data of Significant Wave Height for Intensity and Duration of Severe Sea Storms

Felice Arena, Valentina Laface, Giuseppe Barbaro, Alessandra Romolo

Natural Ocean Engineering Laboratory, Department of Civil Engineering, Energy, Environment and Materials, Mediterranea University, Reggio Calabria, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/ijg.2013.41A021                

Abstract

The paper deals with the analysis of severe storms in the central Mediterranean Sea and in the US coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. Firstly, we introduce a model for the representation of the sea storms by means of two parameters: the former is given by the maximum value of significant wave height in the actual storm and defines the storm intensity, the latter gives the storm duration. The analysis considers buoy data with different sampling Δt between two consecu- tive records, which varies in the range 0.5 - 6 hours. The sensitivity analysis of the modelled sea storm with the varia- tion of Δt shows as the structure of storms is strongly modified with large values of Δt of order of 3 - 6 hours: both the intensity and the duration may change significantly. The results are of interest to investigate the extreme events in the storms obtained with WAve Model, starting from meteorological data, where the value of Δt of 6 hours is widely applied. The conclusion is that structure of severe storms should be represented with continuous data, with Δt = 0.5 hours; a good representation is also obtained with Δt = 1 hour. The errors with increasing values of Δt are investigated.

Keywords

Sea Storm; Wave; Storm Duration; Storm Intensity

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	V. J. Cardone, R. E. Jensen, D. T. Resio, V. R. Swail, and A. T. Cox, “Evaluation of Contemporary Ocean Wave Models in Rare Extreme Events: The ‘Halloween Storm’ of October 1991 and the ‘Storm of the Century’ of March 1993,” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, pp. 198-230. doi:10.1175/1520-0426(1996)013<0198:EOCOWM>2.0.CO;2
[2]	Y. Goda, “Random Seas and Design of Maritime Structures,” World Scientific, 1999.
[3]	M. K. Ochi, “Ocean Waves: The Stochastic Approach,” Ocean Technology Series, Vol. 6, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511529559
[4]	P. Boccotti, “Wave Mechanics for Ocean Engineering,” Elsevier Science, New York, 2000.
[5]	F. Arena, “On the Prediction of Extreme Sea Waves,” In: P. Zanetti, Ed., Environmental Sciences and Environmental Computing, EnviroComp Institute, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 1-50.
[6]	F. Arena and D. Pavone, “Return Period of Nonlinear High Wave Crests,” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (1978-2012), Vol. 111, No. C8, 2006. doi:10.1029/2005JC003407
[7]	F. Arena and D. Pavone, “A Generalized Approach for the Long-Term Modelling of Extreme Sea Waves,” Ocean Modelling, Vol. 26, No. 3-4, 2009, pp. 217-225. doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2008.10.003
[8]	L. E. Borgman, “Maximum Wave Height Probabilities for a Random Number of Random Intensity Storms,” Proceedings of the 12th Conference of Coastal Engineering, Washington DC, 1970, pp. 53-64.
[9]	L. E. Borgman, “Probabilities for Highest Wave in Hurricane,” Journal of the Waterways, Harbors and Coastal Engineering Division, Vol. 99, No. 2, 1973, pp. 185-207.
[10]	F. Fedele and F. Arena, “Long-Term Statistics and Extreme Waves of Sea Storms,” Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 40, No. 5, 2010, pp. 1106-1117. doi:10.1175/2009JPO4335.1
[11]	G. Barbaro, “Estimating Design Wave for Offshore Structures in Italian Waters,” Maritime Engineering, Vol. 164, No. 3, 2011, pp. 115-125.
[12]	Rice, “Distribution of the Duration of Fades in Ration Transmission,” The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1958, pp. 581-635.
[13]	K. Hasselmann, T. P. Barnett, E. Bouws, H. Carlson, D. E. Cartwright, E. Enke, J. A. Ewing, H. Gienapp, D. E. Has selmann, P. Krusemann, A. Meerburg, P. Müller, D. J. Olbers, K. Richter, W. Sell and H. Walden, “Measurements of Wind-Wave Growth and Swell Decay During the Joint North Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP),” Deutsche Hydrographische Zeitschrift, Vol. A12, 1973, pp. 1-95.
[14]	W. J. Pierson and L. A. Moskowitz, “A Proposed Spectral Form for Fully Developed Waves Based on the Similarity Theory of S. A. Kitaigorodskii,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 69, No. 24, 1964, pp. 5181-5190. doi:10.1029/JZ069i024p05181
[15]	P. Boccotti, F. Arena, V. Fiamma, A. Romolo and G. Barbaro, “Estimation of Mean Spectral Directions in Random Seas,” Ocean Engineering, Vol. 38, No. 2-3, 2011, pp. 509-518. doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2010.11.018