Wave power is a major environmental forcing mechanism in Hawai‘i that influences a number of marine ecosystem processes including coral reef community development, structure, and persistence. By driving mixing of the upper water column, wave forcing can also play a role in nutrient availability and ocean temperature reduction during warming events. Wave forcing in Hawai’i is highly seasonal, with winter months typically experiencing far greater wave power than that experienced during the summer months.This layer represents the maximum monthly climatological mean of Wave power (kW/m) from 1979 – 2013. Data were obtained from the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa SWAN model (Simulating WAves Nearshore) following Li et al., (2016).Li, N., Cheung, K.F., Stopa, J.E., Hsiao, F., Chen, Y.-L., Vega, L., and Cross, P. 2016. Thirty-four years of Hawaii wave hindcast from downscaling of climate forecast system reanalysis. Ocean Modelling 100:78-95. This layer was developed as part of a geospatial database of key anthropogenic pressures to coastal waters of the Main Hawaiian Islands for the Ocean Tipping Points project (http://oceantippingpoints.org/). Ocean tipping points occur when shifts in human use or environmental conditions result in large, and sometimes abrupt, impacts to marine ecosystems. The ability to predict and understand ocean tipping points can enhance ecosystem management, including critical coral reef management and policies to protect ecosystem services produced by coral reefs. The goal of the Ocean Tipping Points Hawaii case study was to gather, process and map spatial information on environmental and human-based drivers of coral reef ecosystem conditions. Please contact the Ocean Tipping Points project in advance of applying these data sets to project work so the PI can track and communicate data uses and ensure no duplicate efforts are underway. When applying these data for publication, please reference and cite the complete journal article, Wedding et al. 2017. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.
