Jeong, W.-M., Oh, S.-H., and Eum, H.S., 2016. Analysis of wave climate around Korea based on long-term hindcast and coastal observation data. In: Vila-Concejo, A.; Bruce, E.; Kennedy, D.M., and McCarroll, R.J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 735–739. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

Understanding long-term trends of wave climate is important to establish proper mitigation and adaptation strategies for possible coastal erosion and loss of safety in maritime structure due to climate change. In this study, a 36-year (from 1979 to 2014) wave hindcasting was carried out and detailed analysis was made to recognize long-term changes in coastal wave climate of Korea. The reanalysis wind data provided by ECMWF are applied to the simulation of wave fields over sea waters around Korea. The SWAN model was used to obtain the wave fields from the longitude 120° to 150° East and from the latitude 22.4° to 47.6° North with a grid resolution of 1/12° by 1/12°. Comparison of the hindcasted waves with available wave observation data shows that the simulated wave field agrees fairly well with the observation although extreme values of the significant wave height are slightly underestimated. On average, the annual average and maximum values of the significant wave height showed increasing trend along the coasts of Korea.