A 60 year wave hindcast dataset in the Caribbean Sea

This article presents a 60 years wave hindcast from 1958 to 2017, covering the Colombian Caribbean basin. Each output consists on 6-hour field of significant wave height Hs, mean wave period Tm−01, Tmm−10 and mean direction θm with a resolution of 11.8 km × 11.4 km. The simulation was performed using SWAN model forced with JRA-55 wind fields. Model data is validated against NOAA buoy 42058 located in the central Caribbean. The resolution and time spam of this database allows to perform either coastal engineering projects as well as to perform research in seasonal and interannual wave climate variability including large return periods to evaluate coastal vulnerability.


a b s t r a c t
This article presents a 60 years wave hindcast from 1958 to 2017, covering the Colombian Caribbean basin. Each output consists on 6-hour field of significant wave height H s , mean wave period T m −01 , T mm −10 and mean direction θ m with a resolution of 11.8 km × 11.4 km. The simulation was performed using SWAN model forced with JRA-55 wind fields. Model data is validated against NOAA buoy 42058 located in the central Caribbean. The resolution and time spam of this database allows to perform either coastal engineering projects as well as to perform research in seasonal and interannual wave climate variability including large return periods to evaluate coastal vulnerability. ©

Value of the Data
• This database addresses the lack of information of wave parameters in the Caribbean basin. Database covers 60 years of wave fields suitable for scientific and engineering purposes. • Data is addressed to climate scientists, ocean engineers, coastal managers and public administrations. • This database is suited to (i) study of coastal vulnerability [2] ; (ii) analysis of marine hazards through return periods [3] ; (iii) marine energy analysis [4] ; (iv) climate variability at multiple scales [5] ; (v) works in coastal defense [6] ; (vi) beach management and restoration [7] ; (vii) coral-reef protection [8] .

Data Description
Each file contains significant wave height H s , mean wave period T m −01 T mm −10 , mean direction θ m , latitude, longitude and time for a specific year. Each file in NetCDF format is around 1GB size containing the above data every 6 h at 00 h, 06 h, 12 h and 18 h. Data cover from January, 1st 1958 to December, 31st 2017 on a 229 ×101 mesh nodes with a resolution of 11.8 km × 11.4 km. Bottom left corner coordinates are −84.5219 • W; 8.0922 • N ( Fig. 1 ).

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
SWAN is a third-generation wave model, developed at Delft University of Technology, that computes random, short-crested wind-generated waves in coastal regions and inland waters. Model was forced with JRA-55 wind reanalysis from 1958 to 2017 covering the Caribbean basin. Nonlinear deep-water interactions follow the Webb-Resio-Tracy method and wave growth due to wind has been configured as exponential, following the formulation of [9] . Other relevant processes, such as whitecapping energy dissipation, wave breaking and bottom friction have been included in the simulations. For the validation, the parameters of whitecapping were adjusted; the rate of whitecapping dissipation (Cd s) was set as 3.18 ·10 −5 and the value of the wave steepness for the Pierson-Moskowitz spectrum ( ˆs2PM) as 5.02 ·10 −3. Several testshow that adjustment of other parameters do not provide further improvement when comparing the simulations with observed data. Time step was set as 30 min and H s , T m −01 , and θ m recorded every

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. AO is member of the editorial board of Ocean Dynamics, Ocean Sciences and Frontiers in Marine Sciences.