Validation of the High-Resolution Sea State Forecast Model CWAM using Satellite-based Radar Measurements

Abstract

Remote sensing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X satellites have been used for validation and verification of the newly developed Coastal Wave Model (CWAM). The empirical XWAVE algorithm (Lehner et al., 2014) for derivation of peak wave length and significant wave height has been adopted for coastal application and implemented for near real time services. CWAM is based on WAM (Hasselmann et al. 1988). With a horizontal resolution of 900 m and considering the influence of fluctuating sea level and sea currents CWAM is used for daily operational sea state forecast for the German Bight and the western Baltic Sea (Kieser et al. 2013). 184 very high-resolution StripMap images from 50 satellite passages were processed and compared with buoy measurements and CWAM forecasts. Even though in many cases the comparisons show good agreements between remote sensing, in-situ, and forecast data, a number of local variations due to variety in bathymetry and atmospheric fronts are revealed (Pleskachevsky et al., 2015).