Definition of the global coastline wave distribution climate using computational methods and coastal wave modelling

• Grant number: 22/13873-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: March 02, 2023
• End date: February 01, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Oceanography - Physical Oceanography
• Principal Investigator: Joséph Harari
• Grantee: Ophelie Fabienne Marie Renée Choupin
• Supervisor: Guillaume Dodet
• Host Institution: Instituto Oceanográfico (IO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/06765-8 - Definition of the wave distribution climate using computational methods and global and coastal wave model data, BP.DR

Abstract

Almost 40% of the population lives along the global coastline, and most marine activities are affected by the wave conditions. This PhD is dedicated to characterize and analyses the global distribution of ocean wave multi-variate distribution climate that will eventually help improving coastal population protection and energy independency using harvestable wave energy estimations. In other words, the objective is to divide the well-known global wave trends into a finite number of wave distribution climates and zones with similar characteristics. A clustering algorithm will be developed notably based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technics alongside other data-analysis and optimization methods to cluster wave height, period, and direction data worldwide. The analysis is based on global wave model hindcast in terms of hourly sea state distribution (wave height, period and direction), to cluster them into zones of particular wave distribution climate. The distribution will be analyzed yearly, seasonally, and monthly covering periods of 10 and 30 years prior to 2019. Since this PhD aims to support coastal communities, the global-ocean analysis is accompanied by coastal or shelf-based analyses. Furthermore, since global wave models reanalysis such as ERA5 use coarse-spatial resolution (about 30 km), this PhD eventually targets comparing large spatial-resolution results with those along the coastline. Shelf-based data are characterized by a finer spatial resolution (up to 200 m shoreward). The Laboratory of Physical Oceanography and Satellite Remote Sensing (LOPS) and hosted by the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) directly involved in the PhD's supervision-team will provide their already existing and validated coastal wave dataset. To able to use this wave data and to learn from LOPS/IFREMER's considerable experience in assessing wave globally, eleven months of the PhD's last year would be dedicated to this collaboration as a sanduiche (that this "Bolsa Estágio de Pesquisa no Exterior" is dedicated to support) during which the deeper investigation of the links between the global, especially coastal, results and well known oceanographic and climate phenomena will be undertaken alongside running the algorithm on the high resolution shelf-based wave data to estimate the detailed evolution of the wave distribution climates shoreward. The processing of the large amount of data has been made feasible using a second collaboration with Cranfield University (Centre for Computational Engineering Sciences) that helps handle the computational cost and dramatically reduce the processing time using in total two Hyper Performance Computer (HPC), alongside data analysis and paralleling advanced technics. (AU)