An Assessment of Caspian Sea Modeled Wave Climate using ERA5 winds

Männikus, R.; Giudici, A.; Mayemerova, G.; Beisembekova, M.; Rakisheva, Z., and Soomere, T., 2024. An assessment of Caspian Sea modeled wave climate using ERA5 winds. In: Phillips, M.R.; Al-Naemi, S., and Duarte, C.M. (eds.), Coastlines under Global Change: Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2024 (Doha, Qatar). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 113, pp. 649-653. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. The wave climate of the Caspian Sea has been notably underrepresented in existing scientific literature, highlighting a crucial gap in our understanding. This study endeavors to address this deficiency by modeling wave properties on high resolution (2.5 km) grid utilizing the ERA5 wind dataset for the entire Caspian Sea in 1991–2022. The modeled wave heights were compared with data modeled in previous studies. The mean values of significant wave height HS compare well with previous research while large differences become evident for extreme wave heights. While larger values of long-term average HS, up to 1.1 m, occur closer to the western shore of the central basin, the maximum HS (up to 6.75 m) occur closer to the eastern shore. The distribution of HS in single locations follows an exponential rather than a Rayleigh distribution.