Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from altimeter data
Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from altimeter data
Extreme waves are an important ocean feature. We estimate return values of significant wave height from measurements by satellite altimeters over the North Atlantic. The data were divided into 2° latitude by 2° longitude grid squares and the median along the satellite track was taken in each. Return values were estimated by fitting a Generalised Pareto Distribution to all values above a threshold, which was allowed to vary spatially. This method is objective, more statistically robust and thus theoretically preferable to fitting a distribution to all the data. The novel method gave return values that were up to 37% smaller than those estimated by fitting a Fisher-Tippet 1 distribution to all the data.
extreme wave heights, generalised pareto distribution
241-248
Wimmer, Werenfrid
7b66c35e-5f83-4f95-82e3-5ced9614f28d
Challenor, Peter
a7e71e56-8391-442c-b140-6e4b90c33547
Retzler, Chris
199c140f-45e6-400c-8716-e5823edeb501
February 2006
Wimmer, Werenfrid
7b66c35e-5f83-4f95-82e3-5ced9614f28d
Challenor, Peter
a7e71e56-8391-442c-b140-6e4b90c33547
Retzler, Chris
199c140f-45e6-400c-8716-e5823edeb501
Wimmer, Werenfrid, Challenor, Peter and Retzler, Chris
(2006)
Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from altimeter data.
Renewable Energy, 31 (2), .
(doi:10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019).
Abstract
Extreme waves are an important ocean feature. We estimate return values of significant wave height from measurements by satellite altimeters over the North Atlantic. The data were divided into 2° latitude by 2° longitude grid squares and the median along the satellite track was taken in each. Return values were estimated by fitting a Generalised Pareto Distribution to all values above a threshold, which was allowed to vary spatially. This method is objective, more statistically robust and thus theoretically preferable to fitting a distribution to all the data. The novel method gave return values that were up to 37% smaller than those estimated by fitting a Fisher-Tippet 1 distribution to all the data.
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Published date: February 2006
Keywords:
extreme wave heights, generalised pareto distribution
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Local EPrints ID: 24148
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/24148
ISSN: 0960-1481
PURE UUID: fe3f23fb-d6e4-476b-9d22-c34c4dd6fa4c
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Date deposited: 23 Mar 2006
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:39
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Author:
Peter Challenor
Author:
Chris Retzler
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