Wave hindcast statistics in the seasonally ice-covered Baltic Sea

We used six years of wave hindcasts, calculated by the wave model WAM, to compile wave statistics for the Baltic Sea.The wave model was implemented taking into account the special features of the Baltic Sea: irregular coastline, archipelago and ice.To our knowledge, there is no single way to present annual statistics in seasonally ice-covered seas.We discuss five different possibilities to calculate the statistics, and the differences between them.According to verification against wave buoy and satellite altimeter measurements, the quality of the hindcast significant wave height is sufficient for presenting reliable wave statistics.The mean values of the significant wave height are smaller than 1.5 m.According to the mean values and exceedance probabilities, the severest wave climate is in the Baltic Proper.The wave climate in the other basins is considerably less severe.The maximum hindcast significant wave height is over 9 m, whereas the measured maximum is 8.2 m.