Abstract
This wave climate report presents wave information for Avarua passage in Rarotonga nearshore wave hindcast. This report contains information about wind−generated surface gravity waves, often called wind waves and swell. The wave climate is defined here as the statistics of waves conditions over a 30 year period. The report details the average wave condition (page 2 and 3), the variability of wave conditions (page 4 and 5), severe and extreme waves (page 6 to 9) and characterises the wave energy resource(Page 10). Similar wave climate reports are available for 14 locations around Rarotonga and more than 170 locations around the Pacific, near important ports, large settlements, tide gauge locations and areas where the wave climate is of particular interest. Other locations in the Rarotonga nearshore wave hindcast are shown in Figure 1 (Previous page). Because little wave data exists for the Pacific, the information presented here was derived from a computer model: a nearshore wave hindcast. The wave hindcast evaluated the wave conditions around Rarotonga between 1979 and 2013. It was produced SPC−Geoscience with a resolution of 300m and is accurate for waves in deep and shallow waters until breaking occurs. The model was constrained by the best available data and thoroughly verified against waves measurements (Table below). In Rarotonga, the wave hindcast produced resonably good results with an average skill of 0.93 (skills between 0.8 and 0.9 are considered good, above 0.9 is considered excellent, see Table I.1). For more information about the Rarotonga wave hindcast, readers should refer the WACOP project website (http://gsd.spc.int/wacop/). This report was automatically generated by a computer program created at SPC−Geoscience who run the simulation, analysed the output from the wave hindcast and summarised the findings. Despite our best effort, this report may contain errors and ommissions and should be used with caution.