'''DEFINITION'''

Significant wave height (SWH), expressed in metres, is the average height of the highest one-third of waves. This OMI provides time series of seasonal mean and extreme SWH values in three oceanic regions as well as their trends from 2002 to 2020, computed from the reprocessed global L4 SWH product (WAVE_GLO_PHY_SWH_L4_MY_014_007). The extreme SWH is defined as the 95th percentile of the daily maximum of SWH over the chosen period and region. The 95th percentile represents the value below which 95% of the data points fall, indicating higher wave heights than usual. The mean and the 95th percentile of SWH are calculated for two seasons of the year to take into account the seasonal variability of waves (January, February, and March, and July, August, and September) and are in m while the trends are in cm/yr.

'''CONTEXT'''

Grasping the nature of global ocean surface waves, their variability, and their long-term interannual shifts is essential for climate research and diverse oceanic and coastal applications. The sixth IPCC Assessment Report underscores the significant role waves play in extreme sea level events (Mentaschi et al., 2017), flooding (Storlazzi et al., 2018), and coastal erosion (Barnard et al., 2017). Additionally, waves impact ocean circulation and mediate interactions between air and sea (Donelan et al., 1997) as well as sea-ice interactions (Thomas et al., 2019). Studying these long-term and interannual changes demands precise time series data spanning several decades. Until now, such records have been available only from global model reanalyses or localised in situ observations. While buoy data are valuable, they offer limited local insights and are especially scarce in the southern hemisphere. In contrast, altimeters deliver global, high-quality measurements of significant wave heights (SWH) (Gommenginger et al., 2002). The growing satellite record of SWH now facilitates more extensive global and long-term analyses. By using SWH data from a multi-mission altimetric product from 2002 to 2020, we can calculate global mean SWH and extreme SWH and evaluate their trends.

'''KEY FINDINGS'''

Over the period from 2002 to 2020, positive trends in both Significant Wave Height (SWH) and extreme SWH are mostly found in the southern hemisphere. The 95th percentile of wave heights (q95), increases more rapidly than the average values, indicating that extreme waves are growing faster than the average wave height. In the North Atlantic, SWH has increased in summertime (July August September) and decreased during the wintertime: the trend for the 95th percentile SWH is decreasing by 2.1 ± 3.3 cm/year, while the mean SWH shows a decreasing trend of 2.2 ± 1.76 cm/year. In the south of Australia, in boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH is increasing at a rate of 2.6 ± 1.5 cm/year (a), with the mean SWH increasing by 0.7 ± 0.64 cm/year (b). Finally, in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, also in boreal winter, the 95th percentile SWH trend is 3.2 ± 2.15 cm/year (a) and the mean SWH trend is 1.4 ± 0.82 cm/year (b). This variation highlights that waves evolve differently across different basins and seasons, illustrating the complex and region-specific nature of wave height trends. A full discussion regarding this OMI can be found in A. Laloue et al. (2024).

'''DOI (product):'''

https://doi.org/10.48670/mds-00352