A statistical framework to project wave climate and energy potential in the Caspian Sea: application of CMIP6 scenarios

Caspian Sea as the largest inland water body plays an important role in economy of its neighbor countries apart from its environmental significance. This study explores wave climate in three locations in the southern Caspian Sea considering the socioeconomic pathway scenarios. In this regard, significant wave height, peak wave period and potential wave energy have been projected for a 20-year period of 2081-2100. To achieve reliable forecasts of wave characteristics and also to manipulate different sources of uncertainty, a new statistical framework is employed. The proposed framework gain Weibull distribution based technique for regionalization of near surface wind speed obtained from the climate model to feed the ANN (artificial neural network) model used for wave modeling. Furthermore, a post processing approach is used to ascertain consistency of the distribution of the model forecasts with those of the reference data. Considering two climate change scenarios, it was found that significant wave height and peak wave period do not change remarkably in terms of annual and seasonal variability when compared to the present climate. Moreover, wave energy analysis for the historical and future periods demonstrated sustainability of this renewable energy resources which is promising since clean energies are attracting much attention to meet the increasing demand for electricity. In the southern Caspian Sea, the middle part of the sea is subject to stronger waves indicating its higher potential for energy extraction than the western and eastern parts.

Automated summary

This study examines wave climate in three locations in the southern Caspian Sea under socioeconomic pathway scenarios. It is found that significant wave height and peak wave period do not show significant changes in the future compared to present climate. The analysis also indicates the sustainability of renewable wave energy resources in the Caspian Sea, with the middle part showing higher potential for energy extraction.