Wave Climatology Data for the Baltic Sea

Available for download

Welcome to TalTech's repository for high-resolution wave climatology data for the Baltic Sea, maintained by the Laboratory of Wave Engineering at TalTech, Tallinn University of Technology.

News / Updates

15/03/2024 - ERA5-LITLAT has been entirely re-run with higher resolution.
22/02/2024 - ERA5-LITLAT is now extended to include years 1990-1995.
12/10/2023 - ERA5-GOF is now extended to include years 1980-1985.
15/09/2023 - Segments 1986B, 1985A and 1988C are now fixed and the corresponding packages now contain the correct data.
10/08/2023 - We are working on some issues with the segments 1986B, 1985A and 1988C for GOF-ERA5
01/08/2023 - Tsunami infrastructure will be updated and all the services will be offline from 03/08 until 05/08.
20/07/2023 - GOF-ERA5 Dataset now includes also the time range 1985-1990
02/06/2023 - Scheduled system update between 14:00 and 16:00 CEST. Data access may become unavailable during this timeframe.
30/05/2023 - The ERA5 dataset has been extended to also include year 2022.
22/05/2023 - Segment GOR-ERA5-2016B has been rerun and updated.
14/05/2023 - Segment GOF-ERA5-2019-X was incomplete. This segment has now been rerun and updated.
08/05/2023 - Segment GOF-ERA5-1991-C contained an error due to incorrect parameterization. This segment has now been rerun and the problem fixed.
27/04/2023 - Minisite update, activation of mailing list.

Introduction

This website contains information regarding the wave climatology dataset calculated using the SWAN numerical model at TalTech, Tallinn University of Technology.
High-resolution wave properties timeseries are available for download (in several formats) for the time period 1979-2022.

This research project is co-supported by the Estonian Research Council (grants PRG1129 and PRG1471), the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2014–2021 Baltic Research Programme (grant EMP480), and the European Regional Development Fund program Mobilitas Pluss, reg. nr 2014-2020.4.01.16-0024, project MOBTT72.

Wave Model

The wave parameters are calculated using the SWAN wave model, cycle III, version 41.31A. The model is tuned specifically for each grid.

Grids

Three-level nested scheme of grids. The outer grid cover the Baltic Sea. Resolution on coastal grids of up to 250m.

Forcing Wind

Wave data available with two wind forcings: ERA5 reanalysis by ECMWF and BaltAn65+, originating from ERA-40 and ERA Interim datasets.

Bathymetry

Database of Estonian Transport Administration, Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology and from the Baltic Sea Bathymetry Database by the Baltic Sea Hydrographic Commission.

Documentation

You can download the available documentation here, to find out about how to download and use the wave climatology dataset for the Baltic Sea.

Validation

Input wind datasets ERA5 and BaltAn65+ are thoroughly validated against measurements available from 3 different locations (Kalbadagrund, Parainen and Vilsandi).

Measurements

Wave properties calculated using SWAN are compared with measurements available at 18 different locations in the Baltic Sea.

Output

The model output is provided in 3- or 6- months long batches, including the output wave parameters as NC, MATLAB and TXT format. Post-processed data to include longer timeseries is also provided.

Support

We offer support for the wave dataset. This includes the help with data extraction or the use post-processing scripts.

Client Software

Download and install for free FileZilla, or WinSCP in order to be able to access the dataset via SFTP.

Read the docs

You can read the documentation to better understand how the data is distributed in the dataset, what timeseries and what variables are available.

Download data

That's it! Nothing else is needed to access the entire 100+TB dataset of wave climatology data for the Baltic Sea.

Publications
Our Team

Published Scientific Materials

Below is a collection of references and some visual assets from the scientific publications which stem from this project.

"A comparison of Baltic Sea wave properties simulated using two modelled wind data sets", Andrea Giudici, Rain Männikus, Fatemeh Najafzadeh, Mikolaj Zbigniew Jankowski, Tarmo Soomere, Ülo Suursaar, 2023 - Ocean Engineering
"Spatiotemporal variability of wave climate in the Gulf of Riga", Fatemeh Najafzadeh, Mikolaj Zbigniew Jankowski, Andrea Giudici, Rain Männikus, Maija Viska and Tarmo Soomere, 2023 - Publication Pending, Oceanologia
"Impact of changes in sea ice cover on wave climate of semi-enclosed seasonally ice-covered water bodies on temperate latitudes: a case study in the Gulf of Riga.", Fatemeh Najafzadeh and Tarmo Soomere, 2023 - Publication Pending, Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences

The laboratory was formed in 2009 to promote and provide a structure for research in water waves and coastal engineering within the Department of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics, Institute of Cybernetics and now is one of the core labs of the Institute of Cybernetics.

Project Coordination, data pipeline.

Andrea Giudici

SWAN model tuning, grid design.

Rain Männikus

Data validation and post-processing.

Fatemeh Najafzadeh