ALTWAVE: Toolbox for use of satellite L2P altimeter data for wave model validation

To characterize some of the world’s ocean physical processes such as its wave height, wind speed and sea surface elevation is a major need for coastal and marine infrastructure planning and design, tourism activities, wave power and storm surge risk assessment, among others. Over the last decades, satellite remote sensing tools have provided quasi-global measurements of ocean altimetry by merging data from different satellite missions. While there is a widely use of altimeter data for model validation, practical tools for model validation remain scarce. Our purpose is to fill this gap by introducing ALTWAVE, a MATLAB user-oriented toolbox for oceanographers and coastal engineers developed to validate wave model results based on visual features and statistical estimates against satellite derived altimetry. Our toolbox uses altimetry information from the GlobWave initiative, and provides a sample application to validate a one year wave hindcast for the Gulf of Mexico. ALTWAVE also offers an effective toolbox to validate wave model results using altimeter data, as well as a guidance for non-experienced satellite data users. This article is intended for wave modelers with no experience using altimeter data to validate their results.