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9-Band Wave Energy Data Format: de files

As requested by the US Army Corps of Engineers, CDIP reduces the estimated wave frequency spectra to wave energy (or sea surface variance) in 9 period bands. The data files have 12 columns of numbers in the following format.

Column Description
1 Date UTC (YYYYMMDDHHMM)
2 Significant Wave Height (cm)
3 Peak Period BAND
4 22+ sec. wave energy (cm**2)
5 18-22 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
6 16-18 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
7 14-16 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
8 12-14 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
9 10-12 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
10 8-10 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
11 6-8 sec. wave energy (cm**2)
12 2-6 sec. wave energy (cm**2)


For 9-band products, the peak band is defined as that with the most energy.

NOTE: Estimates of wave energy contain a certain amount of statistical uncertainty. This uncertainty is function of wave frequency bandwidth not period bandwidth. Therefore, the energy estimates in the 9 period bands have varying confidence limits. In general, the statistical uncertainty gets progressively smaller as you go from the longer to the shorter wave period bands (which encompass increasingly larger frequency bandwidths).

Sample Data

From the file de03601199801, wave energy at Grays Harbor, Washington in January 1998. (Header not included in text files.)
     UTC      Hs  Tp           ENERGY(CM^2) by BAND PERIOD LIMITS (SECS)
YYYYMMDDHHMM (CM) (SEC) 22+ 22-18  18-16  16-14  14-12  12-10   10-8    8-6    6-2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

199801010513  161 11     1      2     11     25    121    415    367    276    391
199801010543  171 11     1      3      9     34     90    644    379    345    362
199801010613  157 11     1      1      4     19     65    607    384    237    330
199801010643  170 11     1      2     10     32    112    576    403    348    322
199801010713  151 11     1      1      3     36     52    390    314    305    310
199801010743  166 11     1      1      5     28     83    677    268    303    334