With tourism industry becoming the most important economic activity along the northwest cost of Baja California, new and expensive coastal developments are being built, increasing the relevance of gathering local wave data, even when this span a short period of time. Moreover, the value of this wave data improves if they are used to show that deep-water wave characteristics obtained from a remote location can be extrapolated to fairly represent local wave conditions. In this work wave observations during winter 2001–2002 in four sites within Todos Santos Bay, Baja California, Mexico, are used to document wave characteristics and their spatial variability within the Bay. The possibility of extrapolating into the Bay deep-water wave data from a remote location is also investigated. Results show a marked wave height spatial variability within the Bay, where in some places wave heights can be as much as 2.5 times higher than those measured at other sites. Wave height spatial variability is induced mainly by a combination of a shoaling effect, a convergence of energy, induced by wave refraction as waves enter the Bay, and a shelter effect, produced by the presence of Todos Santos Islands. Regression analysis between wave heights inside Todos Santos Bay and a deep-water station in southern California show a highly coherent wave climate between both places which provides the opportunity to reconstruct the wave climate for Todos Santos Bay from the long-term deep-water wave measurements.
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