CARIMOS
has been developed by Oceanweather and Fugro
GEOS, who have drawn on 20 years experience in
pioneering state-of-the-art metocean studies to produce
engineering descriptions of the environment.
These
descriptions include reliable estimates of both extreme
and normal conditions for winds, waves, currents,
tides and other physical properties. In the Caribbean,
little measured data has been acquired so that until
now engineering criteria have been based on conventional
archives of ship observations, extrapolations of short
records or simple parametric methods. Criteria estimates
made on this basis are likely to be crude and unreliable.
CARIMOS
applies the type of hindcast methods that are the
basis of engineering criteria for most oil and gas
operators in every major offshore operating province,
including the Gulf of Mexico, South China Sea, West
Africa and the European Shelf.
The
success of CARIMOS is founded on a method which encompasses
the entire Caribbean and generates a database by applying:
- Accurate
wind field specification methods
-
A highly calibrated third generation wave hindcast
model.
- A
proven hydrodynamic model
- Hindcasting
of all significant cyclones from 1930 to 1996 for
estimates of extremes.
- In
addition, hindcasting of 15 continuous years (1980-1994)
for estimates of normal conditions.
CARIMOS
also includes a summary of existing ocean current
data.
