Dr Alberto Meucci¹, Prof Ian Young², Dr Mark Hemer³, Ms Claire  Trenham⁴

¹University Of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, ²University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, ³CSIRO Ocean & Atmosphere, Hobart, Australia, ⁴CSIRO Ocean & Atmosphere, Canberra, Australia

We present the new University of Melbourne/CSIRO CMIP6-forced wind-wave climate model ensemble. The ensemble is composed of four 140-year wind-wave climate simulations (1961-2100) forced with surface wind speed and sea-ice concentration from two ACCESS-CM2 and EC-Earth3 GCMs under two different scenarios: SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5. In addition, six 30-year GCM time slice simulations (1985-2014 and 2071-2100) compose the final ensemble product. The wave climate models are run with Wavewatch III with a global three-grid system that allows the modelling of the wave-ice interactions in the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. We will present the comparison with IMOS global satellite altimeter and in-situ buoy climatology as well as the directional spectra outputs extracted at every 50km on a ring around Australia that will ultimately contribute to future Australian regional wave climate studies. We have analysed the significant wave height climate anomalies of the WW3/ACCESS-CM2 and WW3/EC-Earth3 140-year simulations over the latest IPCC ocean climatic regions. The results highlight four regions of the oceans where the changes in the wave climate are projected to be most significant: the Arctic, the North Pacific, the North Atlantic, and the Southern Ocean. In particular, the Southern Ocean shows an increasing trend in the Significant Wave Height which may have critical consequences for future Australian wind-wave climate. The 3-hourly outputs at 0.5-degree resolution globally are useful to understand the extreme sea state changes by the end of the 21st century. Additional integral outputs, such as wave periods and directions, are crucial to understanding future wave climate and the impacts on Australian coastlines.

Biography:

Alberto Meucci holds the position of Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ocean Wave Modelling at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Graduated as a Civil Engineer in Italy, he specialized in Hydraulic Civil Engineering by attending a joint European study program between the University of Florence, Italy, and the IHE-Water Institute in Delft, The Netherlands. His research interest is mainly directed at evaluating the impact of climate change on ocean waves and their impact on coastal and offshore human activities. Additional research interests are global wave models’ performance in representing extreme sea states, air-sea interactions and fully coupled atmosphere-ocean-waves climate models.

Lev Bodrossy is a microbial ecologist at CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere in Hobart. Together with Mark Brown, he initiated the genomics work at the IMOS NRSs in 2012 that grew and morphed into the Marine Microbiome Initiative, led by Jodie van de Kamp and Andrew Bissett. Lev is interested in facilitating the uptake of genomics data by other science fields and end users.