Israel Oceanographic & Limnologic Research - Israel Marine Data Center (ISRAMAR)
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ISRAMAR SWAN System - Coastal wave forecast
System Decription

  SWAN is a third-generation wave model for obtaining realistic estimates of wave parameters in coastal areas, lakes and estuaries from given wind, bottom and current conditions. However, SWAN can be used on any scale relevant for wind-generated surface gravity waves. The model is based on the wave action balance equation with sources and sinks.  The model developed by Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and is supported by Office of Naval Research (USA) and Rijkswaterstaat (as part of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, The Netherlands). SWAN is a freely available, open-source model and can be used freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

ISRAMAR implementation of SWAN model consists of 4 nested grids (Figure below):

  1. Mediterranean
  2. Levatine Basin
  3. Israel Coast
  4. Haifa Bay
  • - resolution of 0.5°x 0.5°
  • - resolution of 0.125°x 0.125°
  • - resolution of 1.5 km x 1.5 km
  • - resolution of 0.5 km x 0.5 km

 ISRAMAR SWAN system uses wind fields at 10 m above sea surface with a resolution of 0.05° x 0.05° provided by The University of Athens's Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group led by Prof. G. Kallos (Regional meteorological model SKIRON). SWAN, governed by SKIRON's winds, runs daily on a LINUX workstation, and requires approximately 3.5 hours to produce 72 hours wave forecast for all grids. Graphical presentation of the forecast is performed by scripts running the visualization program FERRET.

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