Sampling bias in the estimation of significant wave height extreme values

It has been shown before, and it is intuitively evident, that in a Significant Wave Height (SWH) time series, the longer the sampling interval, the lower is the number of events which are above a given threshold value. As a consequence, the use of data with a low time resolution (such as a 3 h sampling, for instance) causes a considerable undervaluation of the extreme SWH values for a given return time RT. In this paper an example of such a bias is provided, and a method is suggested to estimate it on a regional basis. Results may help to improve the use of historical wave meters data which were often collected with a low time resolution, and may also provide a tool to improve the application of Numerical Meteo-Wave models to the evaluation of extremes.