Assessing the wave energy resource using remote sensed data

• Autor(es): Pontes, M.T. ; Bruck, M. ; Lehner, S.
• Data: 2009
• Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.9/358
• Origem: Repositório do LNEG
• Assunto(s): Remote Sensed Data; Period Algorithms; Directional Spectra
• Tipo de Documento: Documento de conferência
• Idioma: Inglês

Descrição

The use of accurate remote sensed wave data in the coastal area (water depth up to 80m) will enable a high quality characterization of the wave energy resource. Work has been carried out with this objective for a number of years namely assessing the quality of the radar altimeter and SAR sensors data. In this paper a summary of the quality of wave period estimates from the NASA/CNES Jason radar altimeter is presented, showing that the analytical models that have been proposed in recent years provide already accurate results. This paper also includes a verification of ESA ENVISAT SAR data (height, period and direction parameters in addition to the shape of frequency spectra) against NDBC buoy data, which has shown good accuracy for wave energy resource assessment. However, the long Exact-Repeat-Period of NASA (10 days) and of ESA satellites (35 days) poses serious limitation to the usefulness of their wave measurements except for long-term wave climate assessment. These shortcomings are expected to be overcome by the new high spatial-resolution TerraSAR-X satellite that is obtaining reliable data for nearshore areas, being able to provide data at 2 - 3 day interval.