On 26/07/2020 12:05, Norman Lynagh wrote:
Unfortunately, this is not an academic exercise. My requirement is to
provided wind and wave data for offshore design purposes. The engineers
require a single number for each. They are not particularly bothered
how it is calculated. They most certainly do not want a range of
numbers. If that is what they are given they have to design to the
highest.

There is a very similar problem in coastal marine flood defense engineering.
I got into a soft,non-pugilistic, argument with a proper academic
oceanographer.
About the repeated use of ,IMHO, erroneous stratistical marine flooding
return period calculations, because of GIGO, garbage in , garbage out.
Proper academic oceanographers , if highly relevant data is missing or
questionable , and they know its iffy/missing, then they just exclude
any reference to it being missing or questionable in their inputs .
Include missing record-breakers and it makes a lot of difference to
these return-period calculations, and so heights/visual
intrusions/strengths/costs of flood walls etc.
For local to me marine flooding , the tide gauge broke in 1924 for the,
my research IMHO record breaker , century long period and twice in the
1990s , one of those missing ones the highest in 50 years,
IMHO/research. At least the paper record of the 1924 tide-gauge survived
and the exact fault and slippage dould be determined a century later,
unlike modern electronic tide gauge crapouts, where you have to rely on
newspaper reports, or witness recollections/photos and surveying, to
reconstitute.
My usual rambling stuff around the phrase
"erroneous flood event return periods in multi-million pound flood
prevention schemes"
on historical marine flooding and lots of ancilliary stuff
http://diverse.4mg.com/solent.htm

--
Global sea level rise to 2100 from curve-fitted existing altimetry data
http://diverse.4mg.com/slr.htm