Characteristics and Long-Term Variability of Occurrences of Storm Surges in the Baltic Sea

Wolski, Tomasz; Wiśniewski, B.

doi:10.3390/atmos12121679

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This connection plays an important role in the context of storm surges and tides. The Straits of Denmark block tidal waves and allows mainly internal tides of only a few centimeter within the Baltic Sea (Rutgersson et al, 2021;Wolski and Wisniewski, 2021). Due to the very narrow connection to the Atlantic, storm surges are only induced internally (Weisse and Hünicke, 2019).…”

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Apart from general drivers of storm surges like wind stresses, atmospheric pressure, and the tides (Harris, 1963) there are additional processes specific to the Baltic Sea that may lead to storm surges. These processes are due to the Baltic Sea being a semi-enclosed basin and range from the current state of water volume (prefilling) over the influence of climate modes like the North-Atlantic-Oscillation (NAO) to the extent of ice-sheet coverage (Wolski and Wisniewski, 2021). Hence, we summarize here the most important general drivers (wind stresses and atmospheric pressure) as well as specific drivers like the prefilling and precipitation in this study.…”

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The wind stress within a given area is further specified by the wind direction, its velocity, duration and fetch (Weisse, 2014). If a wind blows consistently over several days, it deforms the sea surface and causes drift currents and wind setup which eventually lead to a storm surge (Wolski and Wisniewski, 2021;Harris, 1963). Wind conditions in the Baltic Sea are mainly governed by the Westerlies and the cyclonic activity in the Northern Europe-Baltic Sea area.…”

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Storm surges are an extreme and short-lived increase in sea level mainly induced by extreme atmospheric conditions of wind (e.g. storms) and low-pressure systems (Wolski and Wisniewski, 2021;Field et al, 2012;WMO, 2011;Weisse and von Storch, 2010;Harris, 1963). They are a major natural hazard for coastal societies as they not only impose severe damage to infrastructure at coastlines but are also deadly to humans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Short-term prediction of extreme sea-level at the Baltic Sea coast by Random Forests

Bellinghausen

Hünicke²,

Zorita³

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We have designed a machine-learning method to predict the occurrence of extreme sea-level at the Baltic Sea coast with lead times of a few days. The method is based on a Random Forest Classifier and uses sea level pressure, surface wind, precipitation, and the prefilling state of the Baltic Sea as predictors for daily sea level above the 95 % quantile at seven tide-gauge stations representative of the Baltic coast. The method is purely data-driven and is trained with sea-level data from the Global Extreme Sea Level Analysis (GESLA) data set and from the meteorological reanalysis ERA5 of the European Centre for Mid-range Weather Forecasting. These records cover the period from 1960 to 2020 using one part of them to train the classifier and another part to estimate its out-of-sample prediction skill. The method is able to satisfactorily predict the occurrence of sea-level extremes at lead times of up to 3 days and to identify the relevant predictor regions. The sensitivity, measured as the proportion of correctly predicted extremes is, depending on the stations, of the order of 70 %. The proportion of false warnings, related to the specificity of the predictions, is typically as low as 10 to 20 %. For lead times longer than 3 days, the predictive skill degrades; for 7 days, it is comparable to a random skill. The importance of each predictor depends on the location of the tide gauge. Usually, the most relevant predictors are sea level pressure, surface wind and prefilling. Extreme sea levels in the Northern Baltic are better predicted by surface pressure and the meridional surface wind component. By contrast, for those located in the south, the most relevant predictors are surface pressure and the zonal wind component. Precipitation was not a relevant predictor for any of the stations analysed. The Random Forest classifier is not required to have considerable complexity and the computing time to issue predictions is typically a few minutes. The method can therefore be used as a pre-warning system triggering the application of more sophisticated algorithms to estimate the height of the ensuing extreme sea level or as a warning to run larger ensembles with physically based numerical models.

show abstract

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Specific Characteristics Of the Baltic Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Short-term prediction of extreme sea-level at the Baltic Sea coast by Random Forests

Bellinghausen

Hünicke²,

Zorita³

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The projected winter mean sea level changes for 2071 to 2100 are generally larger than the biases of the control simulations [45], and a projected sea level rise for 2090-2099 relative to 1990-1999 could reach from 50 to 100 cm [35]. Due to the change in climate, in the cold period of the year, the transport of western air masses prevails more often, the duration of storms and stronger winds increases [46], a result of which is that the water level in the Curonian Lagoon has been rising by 3 mm year -1 since the 1960s [44]. More frequent and more intense hydrometeorological extreme events are also predicted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea Level Rise Impact on Compound Coastal River Flood Risk in Klaipėda City (Baltic Coast, Lithuania)

Čepienė

Dailidytė²,

Stonevičius

et al. 2022

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Due to climate change, extreme floods are projected to increase in the 21st century in Europe. As a result, flood risk and flood-related losses might increase. It is therefore essential to simulate potential floods not only relying on historical but also future projecting data. Such simulations can provide necessary information for the development of flood protection measures and spatial planning. This paper analyzes the risk of compound flooding in the Danė River under different river discharge and Klaipėda Strait water level probabilities. Additionally, we examine how a water level rise of 1 m in the Klaipėda Strait could impact Danė River floods in Klaipėda city. Flood extent was estimated with the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) and visualized with ArcGIS Pro. Research results show that a rise in the water level in the Klaipėda Strait has a greater impact on the central part of Klaipėda city, while that of the maximum discharge rates of the river affected the northern upstream part of the analyzed river section. A sea level rise of 1 m could lead to an increase in areas affected by Danė floods by up to three times. Floods can cause significant damage to the infrastructure of Klaipėda port city, urbanized territories in the city center, and residential areas in the northern part of the city. Our results confirm that, in the long run, sea level rise will significantly impact the urban areas of the Klaipėda city situated near the Baltic Sea coast.

show abstract

Higher quantiles of sea levels rise faster in Baltic Sea Climate projections

Dieterich,

Radtke

2024

Clim Dyn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Absolute sea levels in the Baltic Sea will rise under the influence of climate warming, similar to those in the world ocean. For extreme sea levels, there are indications that they will rise even faster than mean sea levels, but that topic is still controversially discussed and existing studies point into different directions. We analyzed a regional climate model ensemble for the Baltic Sea for future sea level changes. We find that the rate of change differs between high sea levels and the average: In the eastern part of the Baltic Sea, the 99th percentile of sea level was predicted to rise faster than the median. In the south-western part, the relation was opposite. Thus, our simulations predict a change not only in the sea level mean, but also in its distribution. This pattern was almost consistent between the individual ensemble members. We investigated the 99th percentile as a proxy for extreme sea levels, since their partially stochastic nature limits the predictive skill of our 20-member ensemble. Our findings imply that adapting coastal protection to mean sea level change only may be regionally insufficient.

show abstract

Characteristics and Long-Term Variability of Occurrences of Storm Surges in the Baltic Sea

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

Short-term prediction of extreme sea-level at the Baltic Sea coast by Random Forests

Short-term prediction of extreme sea-level at the Baltic Sea coast by Random Forests

Sea Level Rise Impact on Compound Coastal River Flood Risk in Klaipėda City (Baltic Coast, Lithuania)

Higher quantiles of sea levels rise faster in Baltic Sea Climate projections

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About