Long-term variation of reanalyzed wind waves on the cape of Ca Mau coast, Vietnam

Abstract

This study investigated the long-term variation of reanalyzed wind waves in duration 1900-2010 at the cape of Ca Mau coast, Viet Nam based on ERA-20C dataset in order to clarify basic engineering information about the long-term trend as well as the seasonal characteristics of wind wave properties around study area. On the overall, the seasonal variation of wave height, period and direction were shown to be significant. The monthly-mean wave height and period were correlated with 2nd order polynomials very well. The wave height in dry season was about 2 times higher than that in rainy season, while the seasonal discrepancy of wave period between these two seasons was approximately 1.5 time. The student’s t test indicated that the relations between wave height and period are significant at 1% level. The dominant wave direction in dry and rainy season was the ENE and WSW, respectively. The potential wave energy in dry season is about 7 times higher than that in rainy season. Recent five decades, average mean of potential wave energy flux were much higher than that of previous decadal values.
Keywords: Cape of Ca Mau coast; ERA-20C dataset; reanalysis; wind waves; seasonal, long-term variation