WHACS: An Improved Global Wave Hindcast for the Australian Climate Service

Grant Smith; Alberto Meucci; Claire Spillman; Ron Hoeke; Vanessa Hernaman; Claire Trenham; Stefan Zieger; Bryan Hally; Emilio Echevarria

doi:10.1038/s41597-026-06864-6

WHACS: An Improved Global Wave Hindcast for the Australian Climate Service

Sci Data. 2026 Feb 21;13(1):558. doi: 10.1038/s41597-026-06864-6.

Authors

Grant Smith¹, Alberto Meucci^{2

3}, Claire Spillman⁴, Ron Hoeke², Vanessa Hernaman², Claire Trenham², Stefan Zieger⁴, Bryan Hally², Emilio Echevarria²

Affiliations

¹ Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. grant.smith@bom.gov.au.
² CSIRO Environment, Aspendale, VIC, Australia.
³ Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
⁴ Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

Abstract

A multi-decadal global wind-wave hindcast dataset-WHACS: the Wave Hindcast for ACS-spanning 1979 to near present was developed to offer insight into historical wave conditions both directly and as boundary forcing to localised simulations. Applications for WHACS include coastal management, climate research, and renewable energy projects, ultimately helping communities and industries make informed decisions to improve safety, efficiency, and resilience regarding wave conditions. This dataset features a near-global spherical multi-cell (SMC) grid that aligns with the Bureau operational wave forecast model and has been calibrated to better represent extreme wave conditions by improving the representation of extreme winds. Spanning from 1979 to near present, WHACS available output consists of multiple hourly bulk and spectral partition wave parameters for the native SMC grid, as well as regular global and regional regridded bulk wave parameters. For the Indo-Pacific, a gridded output of full spectral data is available across exclusive economic zones.