Improvement in predictability of waves over the Indian Ocean

Accurate prediction of ocean surface waves is a challenging task with many associated difficulties. Availability of good quality wind and wave information from satellite platforms inspired the scientific community to assimilate such data in various spectral wave models for enhancing the accuracy of prediction. Over the Indian Ocean, which is the region of interest for the present study, wave heights in extreme situation can go up to 12–14 m, thereby increasing the probability of coastal hazards. This region is further governed by the southern ocean swells that propagate thousands of kilometers. These are, in general, not well captured by the spectral wave models. Therefore, assimilation of altimeter data in open ocean wave model WAM has been attempted with the aim of enhancing the quality of prediction of significant wave height. Further, simulated wave spectra have been assimilated in a coastal wave model SWAN. This assimilation has been found to significantly improve the prediction of the height of wind waves as well as swell waves. V. Bhatt and S. Surendran are former students of Meteorology and Oceanography Group, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad.