Correction of ERA5 Wind for Regional Climate Projections of Sea Waves

This paper proposes a method to infer the future change in the wind-wave climate using reanalysis wind corrected to statistically match data from a regional climate model (RCM). The method is applied to the sea surface wind speed of the reanalysis ERA5 from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The correction is determined from a quantile mapping between ERA5 and the RCM at any given point in the geographical space. The issues that need to be addressed to better understand and apply the method are discussed. Corrected ERA5 wind fields are eventually used to force a spectral wave numerical model to simulate the climate of significant wave height. The correction strategy is implemented over the Adriatic Sea (a semi-enclosed basin of the Mediterranean Sea) and includes the present-day period (1981–2010) and the near-future period (2021–2050) under the two IPCC RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 concentration scenarios. Evaluation against observations of wind and waves gives confidence in the reliability of the proposed approach. Results confirm the evolution toward an overall decrease in storm wave severity in the basin, especially under RCP8.5 and in its northern area. It is expected that the methodology may be applied to other reanalyses, RCMs (including multi-model ensembles), or seas with similar characteristics.