Hindcasting of High Swell Waves off the Eastern Korean Coast on 24 February 2008 Using Structured and Unstructured Wave Models

Abstract

Long-period high swell waves have been occurring in the East Sea near Hokkaido, Japan during the atmospheric depression in winter. These waves, called Yorimawari in Japanese, attack the coasts of both Korea and Japan and cause severe coastal damage. The waves recently struck on 24 February 2008 and caused great damage, especially in Toyama and the Niigata coastal area of Japan. The same meteorological conditions also propagated these waves towards the eastern coast of Korea and coastal damage was reported in Anmok, Korea. This paper attempts to hindcast this event by using a mesoscale meteorological forecast model and a third-generation shallow water wave model. By incorporating the weighting factor of the relative wave-number, the simulated wave periods under strong wind conditions showed significant improvements because the overestimation of the whitecapping sink term at low frequencies was improved.