Global Ocean, extreme and mean significant wave height trends from satellite observations - seasonal trends

'''DEFINITION'''

Significant wave height (SWH), expressed in metres, is the average height of the highest third of waves. This OMI provides global maps of the seasonal mean and trend of significant wave height (SWH), as well as time series in three oceanic regions of the same variables and their trends from 2002 to 2020, calculated from the reprocessed global L4 SWH product (WAVE_GLO_PHY_SWH_L4_MY_014_007). The extreme SWH is defined as the 95th percentile of the daily maximum SWH for the selected period and region. The 95th percentile is the value below which 95% of the data points fall, indicating higher than normal wave heights. The mean and 95th percentile of SWH (in m) are calculated for two seasons of the year to take into account the seasonal variability of waves (January, February and March, and July, August and September). Trends have been obtained using linear regression and are expressed in cm/yr. For the time series, the uncertainty around the trend was obtained from the linear regression, while the uncertainty around the mean and 95th percentile was bootstrapped. For the maps, if the p-value obtained from the linear regression is less than 0.05, the trend is considered significant.

'''CONTEXT'''
Grasping the nature of global ocean surface waves, their variability, and their long-term interannual shifts is essential for climate research and diverse oceanic and coastal applications. The sixth IPCC Assessment Report underscores the significant role waves play in extreme sea level events (Mentaschi et al., 2017), flooding (Storlazzi et al., 2018), and coastal erosion (Barnard et al., 2017). Additionally, waves impact ocean circulation and mediate interactions between air and sea (Donelan et al., 1997) as well as sea-ice interactions (Thomas et al., 2019). Studying these long-term and interannual changes demands precise time series data spanning several decades. Until now, such records have been available only from global model reanalyses or localised in situ observations. While buoy data are valuable, they offer limited local insights and are especially scarce in the southern hemisphere. In contrast, altimeters deliver global, high-quality measurements of significant wave heights (SWH) (Gommenginger et al., 2002). The growing satellite record of SWH now facilitates more extensive global and long-term analyses. By using SWH data from a multi-mission altimetric product from 2002 to 2020, we can calculate global mean SWH and extreme SWH and evaluate their trends, regionally and globally.

'''KEY FINDINGS'''

From 2002 to 2020, positive trends in both Significant Wave Height (SWH) and extreme SWH are mostly found in the southern hemisphere (a, b). The 95th percentile of wave heights (q95), increases faster than the average values, indicating that extreme waves are growing more rapidly than average wave height (a, b). Extreme SWH’s global maps highlight heavily storms affected regions, including the western North Pacific, the North Atlantic and the eastern tropical Pacific (a). In the North Atlantic, SWH has increased in summertime (July August September) but decreased in winter. Specifically, the 95th percentile SWH trend is decreasing by 2.1 ± 3.3 cm/year, while the mean SWH shows a decrease of 2.2 ± 1.76 cm/year. In the south of Australia, during boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH is increasing at 2.6 ± 1.5 cm/year (c), with the mean SWH increasing by 0.5 ± 0.66 cm/year (d). Finally, in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, also in boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH trend is 3.2 ± 2.14 cm/year (c) and the mean SWH trend is 1.7 ± 0.84 cm/year (d). These patterns highlight the complex and region-specific nature of wave height trends. Further discussion is available in A. Laloue et al. (2024).

'''DOI (product):''' 
https://doi.org/10.48670/mds-00352