Evaluation of Wave Hindcast Models Skill in the Black Sea

The paper evaluates waves hindcasting skill of two wave models in theBlack Sea: i) Era-Interim and ii) the hindcast MeteOcean model ad-hocextended in the Black Sea. Overall waves conditions, provided by a buoyplaced near Mangalia coast (Romania), are used to evaluate the perfor-mance of the wave models for 4 years of available recordings (2015-2018). The buoy is provided with a FlowQuest1000 ADCP, made upof four acoustic beams, and a meteo-station recording wind direction atabout 7 m above the sea surface. Observed and simulated significantwave height, peak and mean periods are compared and the differencesquantified by means of standard statistical indicators. Preliminary re-sults show that both models have better performance in predicting signif-icant wave heights, with respect to wave periods. With respect to signifi-cant wave heights, the MeteOcean model shows a RMSE (about 0.26 m)lower than Era-Interim (about 0.49 m) with a general small underestima-tion of measurements. The models skill in predicting wave periods overthe considered time interval show higher differences with greater scatterindexes, and regression lines slopes higher than 1. Both models tend tooverestimate mean and peak periods.