Wave foecast models: what is missing?

Since their inception in the 1990s, the third-generation spectral models, used both for the operational wave forecast and for research, reached significant advances in their performance. This success, however, depends on the criteria for this performance and on the aims of the model usage. In the presentation, we will discuss what is missing and what applications require attention, revision or further development of model physics.

We will argue that the main problems, as far as the traditional aim of spectral models is concerned – the wave forecast, is with predicting swell, wave-current interactions and directional spectra of wind-generated waves. Swell is poorly predicted in terms of the wave height, but arrival time is its particular problem - swell can be up to 20 hours early or late by comparison to its forecast. We will demonstrate that partially this can be connected to the issue of wave-current interactions.

The problem of directional wave spectra connects us to a new role of wave models – providing the air-sea fluxes into coupled models for large-scale environments such as Atmospheric Boundary Layer, including spray production, tropical cyclone intensity, for modelling the upper ocean, including ocean mixing, air-sea gras transfer, biogeochemistry, for marginal ice zone, among other application, for climate. In the presentation, we will discuss the new criteria for model performances and avenues of reaching the new aims for spectral models in these new applications.