DEVELOPING IRANIAN SEAS WIND AND WAVE FORECAST SYSTEM

Model applications serve two purposes: a practical one and a scientific one. In practical applications that is the aim of this study, the model is accepted as a reliable tool. Assuch it can be used either in real-time, to forecast sea conditions for ship routing, offshore operations and for coastal protection, or in a hindcasting model for computation of the sea state during a particular event and to determine wave climatology and extremal statistics [1]. The importance of the Iranian seas and the recognition of the ocean and atmospheric conditions in these regions created the scientific and operational cooperation between the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Tehran and the Ports and Maritime Organization. In this collaboration, the latest atmospheric models and wave-simulation thirdgeneration numerical models that simulate oceanic waves with the least hypothesis have been used, which is a reliable system for wind-wave predictions. This study reports on the performance of the Iranian wind-wave forecasting system, which has been promotedwith the collaboration of the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Tehran and the Ports and Maritime Organization.