  In this paper we present a study of the present state of the Black Sea wave
energy. The studies of other authors are based on the use of input data from
atmospheric reanalysis or a downscaling of such reanalysis. Instead of
reanalysis data, we use input data from the operational limited area numerical
weather prediction model ALADIN. We showed that the estimations of the Black
Sea wave energy based on reanalyses deviate significantly from the real
potential. We showed also that the highest values of the mean annual wave power
flux is between 4.5 and 5.0 kW/m2 and the near shore areas with the highest
wave energy potential are the southernmost Bulgarian coast and the coast of
Turkey north of Istanbul. While we showed that the wind data from the
reanalysis are not useful for the estimation of the actual wave energy
potential, we claimed that the reanalysis data is useful to study the long term
changes of the wave energy of the Black Sea. We used the 10m winds from the
recent ERA-20C reanalysis, which covers the period 1901-2010. We performed a
110 years hindcast with these winds using the SWAN wave model. The results for
the area with the highest mean annual wave energy showed that there was an
increase during the first half of the XX century followed by a small decrease
and again a period with elevated wave energy during the seventies. After 1980
there is a steady decrease of the Black Sea wave energy.
