Projected wave climate of Bass Strait and south-east Australia by the end of the twenty-first century

Abstract A high-resolution third-generation wave model based on unstructured grids, WAVEWATCH III (WW3), was used to study the projected future climate of Bass Strait and south-east Australia under two different greenhouse gas emission scenarios (SSP1-2.6 SSP5-8.5). The model, forced with winds from Australian ACCESS-CM2 Global Climate Model, shows good agreement coastal long-term buoy observations an independent WW3 hindcast dataset over historical period 1985–2014. mean significant height ( $$H_{s}$$ H s ) for SSP5-8.5 by end twenty-first century (2071–2100) a robust increase majority domain, but decrease in nearshore regions, mainly due decreases local wind speed. SSP1-2.6 is relatively small. Seasonal variations show that (SSP5-8.5) primarily influenced Southern Ocean swell spring winter prevail summer autumn. H s percentiles stronger extreme than SSP1-2.6. Extreme value western regions domain east. areas Victoria. This changes may have potential implications Tasmanian Victorian coastline stability.