Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from altimeter data

Wimmer, Werenfrid; Challenor, Peter; Retzler, Chris. 2006 Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from altimeter data. Renewable Energy, 31 (2). 241-248. 10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019

Full text not available from this repository.

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019

Abstract/Summary

Extreme waves are an important ocean feature. We estimate return values of significant wave height from measurements by satellite altimeters over the North Atlantic. The data were divided into 2° latitude by 2° longitude grid squares and the median along the satellite track was taken in each. Return values were estimated by fitting a Generalised Pareto Distribution to all values above a threshold, which was allowed to vary spatially. This method is objective, more statistically robust and thus theoretically preferable to fitting a distribution to all the data. The novel method gave return values that were up to 37% smaller than those estimated by fitting a Fisher-Tippet 1 distribution to all the data.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019
ISSN:	0960-1481
Additional Keywords:	extreme wave heights, generalised pareto distribution
Date made live:	23 Mar 2006 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/124148

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019

ISSN:

0960-1481

Additional Keywords:

extreme wave heights, generalised pareto distribution

Date made live:

23 Mar 2006 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/124148