Operational Wind Wave Prediction System at KMA

Abstract

An overview of the current operational wind wave prediction system and of new developments at the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) is presented. KMA has operated a numerical ocean wave prediction system since 1992. The first major upgrade was done in 1999 with the adaptation of a third-generation wave model (WAM) for both regional (ReWAM-0.25 deg resolution, covering Northeast Asia) and global (GoWAM-1.25 deg resolution) domains. In 2005, the KMA replaced its NEC SX5 computer with a 1024-CPU Cray X1E system, a Parallel Vector Processor (PVP) machine with 128 node modules. A coastal ocean wave prediction system (CoWAM) has been designed and is currently under test mode. Six CoWAM domains, each of 3 deg longitude by 2 deg latitude in size, with a mesh size of 1 km, are nested inside the regional ocean wave prediction system. The directional wave spectra at the boundaries of the CoWAM are provided from a 1/12° resolution upgraded version of the operational ReWAM. The WAVEWATCH-III code (developed at NOAA) is used for the upgraded ReWAM and new CoWAM system. To ensure the required model performance in the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) architecture of the new supercomputer, a Message Passing Interface (MPI) has been implemented in the model source code. The sea surface wind and significant wave height are verified routinely on a monthly basis. The global moored buoy data (including the coastal buoys operated by KMA) and remote sensing data from Topex/Poseidon, and Jason (retrieved wave heights) and QuikSCAT (retrieved wind data) are used for verification of the wave prediction system. This validation and a comparison of results from the new ReWAM and CoWAM against buoy data off the coast of Korea are discussed.

Keywords:

• Wind wave
• operational system
• supercomputer
• validation
• WAVE-WATCH-III

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express many thanks to Dr. Woo-Sun Yang of Cray Korea Inc., for the optimization of the model source code and to Dr. Kicheon Jun of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute in three years of collaboration in this area. The authors also appreciate the support from KMA supercomputing center for providing computational resources. This work is part of a National Institute of Meteorological Research project, Development of High Resolution Storm Surge and Wind Wave Monitoring System.