Global Wave Statistics Online Help

Location Selection

From the location screen you can select any of the 104 sea areas in the Worldwide database, or any of the 31 areas in the European database.

The menu bar is used to navigate around the various levels of the site. Most of the options are unavailable until a sea area of interest has been selected. The help link is used to display help appropriate to the current web page.

The main body of the page has four sections:

1. A pull-down menu for selection between the Worldwide and European databases.
2. A map showing the sea areas for the current database, from which a location can be chosen.
3. The Longitude and Latitude selection form.
4. The Sea Area by Number selection form.

The database can be changed using the "Wave Database" pull-down menu. This menu contains the options "Worldwide Database" and "European Database". To select the required database, highlight the corresponding option in the menu and click on the "Change Database" button.

Once the correct database is shown, the actual sea area can be picked in three ways:

1. Selecting using the map.
2. Selecting the Latitude and Longitude.
3. Selecting the Sea Area Number.

Graphical Location Selection

Graphical location selection offers a number of advantages:

1. You can visually check that the location is in the correct sea area (it is easy to make mistakes typing in latitudes and longitudes).
2. You can see the size and shape of the sea area in relation to your chosen location.
3. You can visualise the effect that proximity to land may have on waves from certain directions.

Clicking on the sea area map can have various effects, depending on the option selected by the radio buttons found above the map:

• Zoom in - Enlarges the map, centring the chosen location.
• Zoom out - Reduces the map, centring the chosen location if practical.
• Select - Select for analysis the sea area containing the chosen point.

Latitude and Longitude Input

The latitude and longitude of the area of interest may be selected by entering these values in the corresponding input boxes on the right of the screen. These must be specified in degrees. To specify a fractional value, type a decimal point and one or two decimal places. Use the radio buttons to select North or South, and East or West.

Once the longitude and latitude has been entered the 'Zoom In', 'Zoom Out' and 'Select' buttons are available.

• Zoom in - Enlarges the map, centring the chosen location, which is shown by a cross mark.
• Zoom out - Reduces the map, centring the chosen location if practical.
• Select - Select for analysis the sea area containing the chosen location.

Sea Area Number Selection

If you know the number of the sea area of interest (having looked at the area previously), then this area number can be typed into the Sea Area number box, and the "Select Area" button used to select the area.

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