Extensive monitoring and intensive analysis of extreme winter-season wave events on the Korean east coast

Abstract

Extensive wave monitoring was carried out over nine consecutive years at nine different locations along the east coast of Korea in order to examine the overall wave statistics and to investigate the generation and propagation mechanism of occasional high waves in this region. This type of long-tenn wave observation at multiple stations has never been performed on the Korean east coast. Appearances of high waves, defined by criteria of H-s >= 3 m and T-s >= 9 s at any of the nine stations within a single day accounted for approximately 5% of the total data. These high waves mostly occurred in winter under the influence of strongly developed winter storms over the East Sea. Among these high wave events, three representative cases were subjected to a further intensive analysis by using the corresponding wave data together with meteorological data at that time. Based on such a synthetic analysis, it was possible to understand details regarding the general patterns in the development of low pressures and subsequent formation of strong wind fields around the coastal zone, which eventually affected the characteristics of the high waves that were observed.