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The impact of sea surface currents in wave power potential modeling

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Abstract

The impact of sea surface currents to the estimation and modeling of wave energy potential over an area of increased economic interest, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, is investigated in this work. High-resolution atmospheric, wave, and circulation models, the latter downscaled from the regional Mediterranean Forecasting System (MFS) of the Copernicus marine service (former MyOcean regional MFS system), are utilized towards this goal. The modeled data are analyzed by means of a variety of statistical tools measuring the potential changes not only in the main wave characteristics, but also in the general distribution of the wave energy and the wave parameters that mainly affect it, when using sea surface currents as a forcing to the wave models. The obtained results prove that the impact of the sea surface currents is quite significant in wave energy-related modeling, as well as temporally and spatially dependent. These facts are revealing the necessity of the utilization of the sea surface currents characteristics in renewable energy studies in conjunction with their meteo-ocean forecasting counterparts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oceanography Centre, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, 1678, Cyprus

    George Zodiatis, Andreas Nikolaidis & Stavros Stylianou

  2. Mathematical Modeling Group, Section of Mathematics, Hellenic Naval Academy, 185 39, Hatzikiriakion, Piraeus, Greece

    George Galanis & Aristotelis Liakatas

  3. Department of Physics, Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group, University of Athens, University Campus, Bldg. PHYS-V, 157 84, Athens, Greece

    George Kallos & Christina Kalogeri

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  1. George Zodiatis
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  2. George Galanis
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  3. George Kallos
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  4. Andreas Nikolaidis
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  5. Christina Kalogeri
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  6. Aristotelis Liakatas
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  7. Stavros Stylianou
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Correspondence to George Zodiatis.

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Responsible Editor: Pierre De Mey

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Coastal Ocean Forecasting Science supported by the GODAE OceanView Coastal Oceans and Shelf Seas Task Team (COSS-TT)

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Zodiatis, G., Galanis, G., Kallos, G. et al. The impact of sea surface currents in wave power potential modeling. Ocean Dynamics 65, 1547–1565 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-015-0880-4

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