Changing Waves and Storms in the Northeast Atlantic?

Abstract

The European project WASA (Waves and Storms in the North Atlantic) has been set up to verify or disprove hypotheses of a worsening storm and wave climate in the northeast Atlantic and its adjacent seas in the present century. Its main conclusion is that the storm and wave climate in most of the northeast Atlantic and in the North Sea has undergone significant variations on timescales of decades; it has indeed roughened in recent decades, but the present intensity of the storm and wave climate seems to be comparable with that at the beginning of this century. Part of this variability is found to be related to the North Atlantic oscillation. An analysis of a high-resolution climate change experiment, mimicking global warming due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations, results in a weak increase of storm activity and (extreme) wave heights in the Bay of Biscay and in the North Sea, while storm action and waves slightly decrease along the Norwegian coast and in most of the remaining North Atlanti... Abstract The European project WASA (Waves and Storms in the North Atlantic) has been set up to verify or disprove hypotheses of a worsening storm and wave climate in the northeast Atlantic and its adjacent seas in the present century. Its main conclusion is that the storm and wave climate in most of the northeast Atlantic and in the North Sea has undergone significant variations on timescales of decades; it has indeed roughened in recent decades, but the present intensity of the storm and wave climate seems to be comparable with that at the beginning of this century. Part of this variability is found to be related to the North Atlantic oscillation. An analysis of a high-resolution climate change experiment, mimicking global warming due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations, results in a weak increase of storm activity and (extreme) wave heights in the Bay of Biscay and in the North Sea, while storm action and waves slightly decrease along the Norwegian coast and in most of the remaining North Atlanti...