- Morim, J
- Hemer, M
- Wang, XL
- Cartwright, N
- Trenham, C
- Semedo, A
- Young, I
- Bricheno, L
- Camus, P
- Casas-Prat, M
- Erikson, L
- Mentaschi, L
- Mori, N
- Shimura, T
- Timmermans, B
- Aarnes, O
- Breivik, Ø
- Behrens, A
- Dobrynin, M
- Menendez, M
- Staneva, J
- Wehner, M
- Wolf, J
- Kamranzad, B
- Webb, A
- Stopa, J
- Andutta, F
- et al.
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. Understanding climate-driven impacts on the multivariate global wind-wave climate is paramount to effective offshore/coastal climate adaptation planning. However, the use of single-method ensembles and variations arising from different methodologies has resulted in unquantified uncertainty amongst existing global wave climate projections. Here, assessing the first coherent, community-driven, multi-method ensemble of global wave climate projections, we demonstrate widespread ocean regions with robust changes in annual mean significant wave height and mean wave period of 5–15% and shifts in mean wave direction of 5–15°, under a high-emission scenario. Approximately 50% of the world’s coastline is at risk from wave climate change, with ~40% revealing robust changes in at least two variables. Furthermore, we find that uncertainty in current projections is dominated by climate model-driven uncertainty, and that single-method modelling studies are unable to capture up to ~50% of the total associated uncertainty.