EVALUATION OF THE WAVE CLIMATE OVER THE BLACK SEA: FIELD OBSERVATIONS AND MODELING

Abstract

The knowledge of the wave climate is one of the most important data for application of coastal engineering, which includes coastal structure design, sediment transport, coastal erosion and so on. Due to the lack of measurements in many region and high cost of wave measurements, coastal engineers have to estimate wave characteristics using a variety of methods, which comprise empirical and numerical solutions. A variety of empirical and numerical methods have been developed and used for determining wave characteristics. In this study, in order to determine wave climate over the Black Sea, it was used third generation Mike 21 spectral wave model. For this purpose, a series of numerical models were conducted in a way to cover the 13-year period between 1996 and 2008. The obtained results from numerical models were compared to the results of Wind and Deep Water Wave Atlas for Turkish Coasts. It was concluded that the results were highly consistent each other.