3. Wave Climate Characteristics

The ocean wave has a significant impact on the safety and cost of navigation, wave energy resources development, seawall design, ocean engineering, island and reef construction, disaster prevention and reduction, air-sea interaction, global climate change and so on. Previous researchers have made a great contribution to the wave climate analysis of the China seas. However, there are few studies on the wave climate of the northern Indian Ocean, so there is no detailed reference for the construction of the Maritime Silk Road. In this chapter, the wave climate of the Maritime Silk Road is analyzed based on ERA-interim wave reanalysis data from the European Centre For Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and WW3 hindcast wave data forced by the CMIP5 wind data, systematically including the seasonal characteristics of wave direction and wave height, wave rose (co-occurrence of wave height and wave direction), rough sea occurrence, the annual trend of significant wave height (SWH), extreme wave height, the future wave field, etc., to provide a reference for navigation, ocean engineering, wave energy development, disaster prevention and reduction, and so on.