EVALUATION OF ERA-INTERIM WAVE CHARACTERISTICS IN SOUTHERN CASPIAN SEA

Environmental data specially wave and wind data are the most important phenomenon to be considered among the other potential factors affecting marine and coastalactivities like construction, maintenance, transportation, fishing, etc. Since obtaining environmental data by measuring devices or satellites is time consuming and veryexpensive, numerical models are utilized in order to predict the sea wave characteristics. The results of numerical wave hindcast models mainly depend on the quality of the wind data used to drive the model [1-4]. Therefore, using an appropriate wind field is essential and the most problematic task for wave modeling. Although, there are various wind sources to predict the wave characteristics, a couple of attempts have been undertaken within the last few years on the performance of reanalyzed data in wave modeling. ECMWF s ERAInterim is more recent reanalyzes which provides better resolution and description of the wind fields. Therefore, the aim of this work is to evaluate the wave characteristics of the new assimilated dataset, ERA-Interim in the southern Caspian Sea. Therefore, at first, a numerical simulation of sea wave characteristics was carried out based on ERA-Interim wind data. In this regard, the SWAN spectral model was implemented and validated against measured data. Regarding to calibration, a combination of appropriate white-capping dissipation and bottom friction factors was used to calibrate the model. Then, the model results were compared to the wave characteristics obtained from ERA-Interim.