Extreme wave heights in the North Atlantic from Altimeter Data

Werenfrid Wimmer, Peter Challenor and Chris Retzler

Renewable Energy, 2006, vol. 31, issue 2, 241-248

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.

Keywords: Extreme wave heights; Generalised pareto distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:31:y:2006:i:2:p:241-248

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2005.08.019

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