Reliability of coupled meteorological and wave models to estimate wave energy resource in the Bay of Biscay

Hourly and 12 km horizontal resolution wind fields simulated by the WRF model (Weather Research and Forecasting model) have been used to force the WAM model (WAve prediction Model), for a wave hindcast run in the southeastern Bay of Biscay. Three-hourly boundary conditions (defined by directional wave spectra) were provided by the WAVEWATCH III model, run by NOAA. The year 2009 was selected to analyse the performance of both wind and wave models in determining the parameters needed to estimate the wave energy resource. Model results were compared with available observations of six ocean-meteorological stations located in the area of interest. The WRF model was able to reproduce the time evolution of the offshore wind fields with a reasonable accuracy (a mean value of r 2 >0.6). However, close to the coastline, the analysis suggests that a higherhorizontal resolution configuration would be a more appropriate tool to estimate winds. Regarding the WAM model, the significant wave height, Hs, and the mean period, Tm02, were the wave parameters to show a statistically better agreement with the observations in deep and intermediate waters. Here, r 2 was higher than 0.9 and 0.7 for Hs and Tm02, respectively. The analysis of the results points out that the wave model output errors increase in nearshore areas.