In this webcast, Dr. Hendrik Tolman (NOAA Marine Analysis Branch) discusses the operational use of NOAA WAVEWATCH III. The NOAA WAVEWATCH III is a forecast system that predicts wind-generated ocean waves. Dr. Tolman discusses what WAVEWATCH III can and cannot predict along with the model physics, numerics, and forecast products. Numerous examples illustrate the practical effects of several recent model improvements including high-resolution hurricane winds, surf zone physics, wave partitioning, and use of a multi-grid mosaic. The webcast concludes with a discussion of future improvements planned for the wave forecast system.
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* Describe the types of waves simulated by WAVEWATCH III.
* Describe the information contained in a wave spectral plot.
* Describe the information contained in a wave spectral text bulletin and how it differs from a spectral plot.
* List the forecast products released by NOAA in 2-D map format.
* List and describe the statistical properties of waves commonly derived from WAVEWATCH III output.
* Define Significant Wave Height and its relationship to the maximum wave height one might expect to encounter.
* Define Freak Waves and explain why WAVEWATCH does not predict them.
* Describe wave field partitioning in WAVEWATCH III.
* Describe where the greatest number of partitioned wave fields is typically found in the oceans and why.
* List the processes that are parameterized by WAVEWATCH III.
* List the processes that are directly predicted by WAVEWATCH III without parameterization
* Describe the WAVEWATCH III multi-grid mosaic and its benefits.
* Describe the benefits to placing small, unresolved islands into the model grid as obstructions.
* Describe the source of wind data used within WAVEWATCH III.
* Describe the benefits of running WAVEWATCH III with winds from Hurricane models and from forecaster-generated NDFD grids.
* Describe the sources of errors in WAVEWATCH III predictions.
* Describe how WAVEWATCH III ensembles are generated and applied.
WAVEWATCH, Tolman, ocean, wave, numerical, model, surf, swell, spectrum, partition, grid, ensemble, significant wave height, freak wave, grid, resolution, multigrid mosaic, text bulletin, rogue wave
July 2014: This webcast discusses Wave Watch III version 2.22, which was operational from 2003 to 2009. The last implementation will be Wave Watch III version 4.18, released in March 2014. Details on all Wave Watch III implementations can be seen on the Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch Wave Watch page at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/wavewatch/.
