EU Copernicus Marine Service Global Waves analysis and forecast

Short description:
The operational global ocean analysis and forecast system of Météo-France with a resolution of 1/12 degree is providing daily analysis and 5 days forecasts for the global ocean sea surface waves. The time series starts on April 1st, 2015. This product includes 3-hourly instantaneous fields of integrated wave parameters from the total spectrum (significant height, period, direction, Stokes drift,…etc), as well as the following partitions: the wind wave, the primary and secondary swell waves.

Detailed description:
The global wave system of Météo-France is based on the wave model MFWAM which is a third generation wave model. MFWAM uses the computing code ECWAM-IFS-38R2 with a dissipation terms developed by Ardhuin et al. (2010). The model MFWAM was upgraded on november 2014 thanks to improvements obtained from the european research project « my wave » (Janssen et al. 2014). The model mean bathymetry is generated by using 2-minute gridded global topography data ETOPO2/NOAA. Native model grid is irregular with decreasing distance in the latitudinal direction close to the poles. At the equator the distance in the latitudinal direction is more or less fixed with grid size 1/10°. The operational model MFWAM is driven by 6-hourly analysis and 3-hourly forecasted winds from the IFS-ECMWF atmospheric system. The wave spectrum is discretized in 24 directions and 30 frequencies starting from 0.035 Hz to 0.58 Hz. The model MFWAM uses the assimilation of altimeters with a time step of 6 hours. The global wave system provides analysis 4 times a day, and a forecast of 5 days at 0:00 UTC. The wave model MFWAM uses the partitioning to split the swell spectrum in primary and secondary swells.

References:
F. Ardhuin, R. Magne, J-F. Filipot, A. Van der Westhyusen, A. Roland, P. Quefeulou, J. M. Lefèvre, L. Aouf, A. Babanin and F. Collard : Semi empirical dissipation source functions for wind-wave models : Part I, definition and calibration and validation at global scales. Journal of Physical Oceanography, March 2010.P. Janssen, L. Aouf, A. Behrens, G. Korres, L. Cavalieri, K. Christiensen, O. Breivik : Final report of work-package I in my wave project. December 2014.