Mr. Vinoth Jayaratnam   PhD Student

Qualifications

• BSc in Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, (Srilanka), 2007

Research Topic

• Global estimates of extreme wind speed and wave height for offshore and coastal engineering applications

Synopsis

Satellite altimeters provide the potential for global measurements of wind speed and wave height which can be potentially used to determine 50 and 100 year return period conditions. A number of studies have used data sets of relatively short duration to show that such approaches are feasible. The analysis will assess the accuracy of the altimeter-derived extreme values by comparison with deep-water buoy data. A variety of different probability distributions and analysis techniques will be applied to the data and an optimal approach for use with altimeter data will be present. It is also clear that such a long term (23 years) altimeter data set can provide estimates of extreme wind and wave conditions on a global scale. Clearly, such results are of significant importance to both offshore and coastal engineering applications

Supervisor

• Professor Ian Young

Co-Supervisors

• Professor Alexander Babanin

Refereed Journals

1. Zieger, S., Vinoth, J. and Young, I.R., 2009. “Joint Calibration of Multiplatform Altimeter Measurements of Wind Speed and Wave Height over the Past 20 Years”. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 26(12): 2549-2564.doi:10.1175/2009JTECHA1303.1.

Conference Papers

1. Young.I.R, Zieger.S and Vinoth.J, 2009: “A Global Multi-mission Altimeter Data base” Proceedings of the 19th Australasian Coastal and Ocean Engineering Conference and the 12th Australasian Port and Harbour Engineering Conference, 16-18 September 2009, Wellington, New Zealand