Author(s): V. C. Khon; I. I. Mokhov; F. A. Pogarskiy; A. Babanin; K. Dethloff; A. Rinke; H. Matthes
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Abstract: Global wave climate can serve as an indicator of changes and trends in general weather climate and has great practical significance in its own right. While wave heights globally have been growing over recent decades, observations of their regional trends vary. Simulations of future wave climate can be achieved by coupling wave and climate models. However, wave heights and their future trends in the Arctic Ocean remain unknown. Here we show that significant wave height and its extremes will increase over different inner Arctic areas due to simulated reduction of sea ice cover and regional wind intensification in the 21st century. We used the thirdgeneration wave forecast model WAVEWATCH-III forced by winds and sea ice concentration produced within the regional model HIRHAM, under the anthropogenic scenario SRES-A1B. We found that the largest wave height growth was observed over the Arctic shelf in the September-October period. The opposite tendency, with a slight reduction in wave height appears for the Atlantic sector and the Barents Sea. Our results extend the knowledge of wave climate to high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and demonstrate the wave response to a combined influence of wind and ice forcing in a climate-change scenario. We anticipate this to be a starting point for discussion on the coupled wave-wind-ice dynamics of the Arctic Ocean, important for climate studies, navigation planning and offshore engineering in this vital region of the world ocean.
Year: 2014