Nearshore Wave Climatology of the New Jersey Shelf

Knowledge of ocean surface conditions including waves and winds are a valuable asset to the mariner as well as the oceanographer. While global climatology provides an overview for the general wave environment, regional studies provide more detail that may be useful to the stakeholder. The coast of New Jersey is important economically to the state for the coastal tourism and revenue. Having a nearshore wave climatology is important to protect the natural resource of the Jersey Shore. A decade of wave measurements were collected at several locations along the coast of New Jersey utilizing High Frequency (HF) radar measurements. HF radar is a remote sensing technology that covers the coastal ocean up to 200 km from shore. These measurements were compared to nearby wave buoys as provided by the National Data Buoy Center. The statistics of the nearshore waves were comparable with the offshore buoy measurements on a yearly or monthly time scale. However, during individual storm events there could be large differences between the two measurements due to wind direction and fetch limitations. The availability of this nearshore wave measurement has applications for validation of operational weather models. The nearshore measurements will also fill gaps between offshore measurements (buoys and satellite altimeters) and temporary nearshore observations during severe events. The data could also be utilized as a model assimilation data source as well.