WANE4

WANE4 Website (Oceanweather Inc.) Summary WANE4 is a long term hindcast of continuous wind and wave climatology for the West Africa coastline from Guinea to Namibia. This new hindcast takes advantage of advances in atmospheric forcing, wave modeling, and application of the extensive array of in-situ and satellite-based wind and wave observations available in the basin. WANE4 builds on Oceanweather’s (OWI) long history of producing detailed metocean hindcasts for the West Africa domain, succeeding the WAX JIP and the WANE, WANE2 and WANE3 hindcasts. Extreme waves in the study area are associated with swell propagated from two primary types of storms: deep Southern Ocean migratory extratropical cyclones (southwest swell events) and episodic enhancements of the southeast trade winds (southeasters) which are a quasi-permanent feature of the atmospheric circulation offshore West Africa south of 10° S. Swells generated from Northern Hemisphere extratropical and tropical systems also impact exposed locations inthe study domain. The continuous hindcast includes detailed reanalysis of swell and local storm winds for application in the WANE4 wave models. Global wave modeling is nested down to coastal grids at ~ 9 km and ~ 4.7 km resolution. These are the same grids applied in the WANE3 hindcast, but with more advanced wind forcing/methodology and new wave model setup. The hindcast provides an extensive dataset of hourly wind and wave fields, including swell train partitioning and JONSWAP fits, as well as directional wave spectra. Project Highlights Archive Time Step 1 Hour Hindcast Dates Continuous: 1/1/1979 to 12/31/2024 Variables Wind, Bulk Wave and Spectra Spatial Resolution $\frac{1}{12}^{\circ}$ & $\frac{1}{24}^{\circ}$ Regional Extent West Africa: 29.7° S to 14° N, 18.7° W to 17° E Meteorological Forcing ERA5 Wind + Bias Adj. Boundary Conditions ERA5 Wave Spectra + Bias Adj. Previous Versions WAX, WANE, WASP, WANE2, and WANE3