Variability of multivariate wave climate in Latin America and the Caribbean

Wave climate is highly variable on the world's coast and its temporal changes and extremes usually imply consequences like erosion or impacts to infrastructures. Alterations in wave climate were little addressed in the four IPCC reports although variations in wave climate may cause extensive coastal impacts. Changes are also often related to climate pattern variability. This variability as well as long-term trends has been an issue of research in recent years. In the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) an understanding of wave climate and its variability is scant. In this paper we use an extensively calibrated and validated wave reanalysis to describe the wave climatology in the region at different time scales and for scalar and directional wave parameters. Long-term changes are identified in the wave heights and mean direction of the energy flux shows high spatial variability. Correlation patterns of the mean significant wave height and direction of mean energy flux lead to the detection of prominent modes of influence of several climate indices. A wave climate type approach is also used to identify wave variability along the region that allows an identification of different wave climate types in terms of wave parameters and occurrence frequency. In line with the results, the influence of El Nino events shows a higher frequency of occurrence of certain sea-states with respect to non ENSO years. We also explore how climate change affecting storm patterns may be translated into a modification of sea-state occurrence and therefore implying different consequences for coastal zones depending on local wave propagation. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.