AUTHOR=Ardhuin Fabrice , Stopa Justin E. , Chapron Bertrand , Collard Fabrice , Husson Romain , Jensen Robert E. , Johannessen Johnny , Mouche Alexis , Passaro Marcello , Quartly Graham D. , Swail Val , Young Ian TITLE=Observing Sea States JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=6 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00124 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2019.00124 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=
Sea state information is needed for many applications, ranging from safety at sea and on the coast, for which real time data are essential, to planning and design needs for infrastructure that require long time series. The definition of the wave climate and its possible evolution requires high resolution data, and knowledge on possible drift in the observing system. Sea state is also an important climate variable that enters in air-sea fluxes parameterizations. Finally, sea state patterns can reveal the intensity of storms and associated climate patterns at large scales, and the intensity of currents at small scales. A synthesis of user requirements leads to requests for spatial resolution at kilometer scales, and estimations of trends of a few centimeters per decade. Such requirements cannot be met by observations alone in the foreseeable future, and numerical wave models can be combined with