Forcing Factors Affecting Sea Level Changes at the Coast

Woodworth, Philip L.; Melet, Angélique; Marcos, Marta; Ray, Richard D.; Wöppelmann, Guy; Sasaki, Yoshi N.; Cirano, Mauro; Hibbert, Angela; Huthnance, John M.; Monserrat, Sebastià; Merrifield, M. A.

doi:10.1007/s10712-019-09531-1

Cited by 236 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 273 publications

(312 reference statements)

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“…Wave height, period and direction vary over a broad range of timescales, from seasonal to interannual and multidecadal scales in response to both internal climate variability (e.g. seasonality in storminess, climate modes of variability such as ENSO) and to climate change (section 3, see also Woodworth et al 2019). Long-term changes in offshore wave conditions can therefore modulate wave energy fluxes and extreme water levels at the coast (e.g.…”

Section: Wave Contribution To Coastal Sea Level Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Wind-Generated Waves to Coastal Sea-Level Changes

et al. 2019

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Surface gravity waves generated by winds are ubiquitous on our oceans and play a primordial role in the dynamics of the ocean-land-atmosphere interfaces. In particular, wind-generated waves cause fluctuations of the sea level at the coast over timescales from a few seconds (individual wave runup) to a few hours (wave-induced setup). These wave-induced processes are of major importance for coastal management as they add up to tides and atmospheric surges during storm events and enhance coastal flooding and erosion. Changes in the atmospheric circulation associated with natural climate cycles or caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions affect the wave conditions worldwide, which may drive significant changes in the wave-induced coastal hydrodynamics. Since sea-level rise represents a major challenge for sustainable coastal management, particularly in low-lying coastal areas and/or along densely urbanized coastlines, understanding the contribution of wind-generated waves to the long-term budget of coastal sea-level changes is therefore of major importance. In this review, we describe the physical processes by which sea states may affect coastal sea level at several timescales, we present the methods currently used to estimate the wave contribution to coastal sea-level changes, we describe past and future wave climate variability, we discuss the contribution of wave to coastal sea-level changes, and we discuss the limitations and perspectives of this research field.

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Section: Wave Contribution To Coastal Sea Level Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Wind-Generated Waves to Coastal Sea-Level Changes

et al. 2019

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“…Moreover, ERA5 will cover the period 1950-present compared to 1979-2019 for ERA-Interim (Hersbach et al 2019). The increase in the length of the climate record from 41 to 70 years, allows to further enhance our understanding of decadal to interannual sea level variability (Woodworth et al 2019). Extending the length of the extreme sea level reanalysis would contribute to more accurate assessments of the influence of natural climate variability such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation on extreme sea levels (Marcos et al 2017;Muis et al 2018).…”

Section: Potential Use Of Era5mentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing global storm surge modelling using the new ERA5 climate reanalysis

et al. 2019

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This study examines the implications of recent advances in global climate modelling for simulating storm surges. Following the ERA-Interim (0.75° × 0.75°) global climate reanalysis, in 2018 the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts released its successor, the ERA5 (0.25° × 0.25°) reanalysis. Using the Global Tide and Surge Model, we analyse eight historical storm surge events driven by tropical-and extra-tropical cyclones. For these events we extract wind fields from the two reanalysis datasets and compare these against satellite-based wind field observations from the Advanced SCATterometer. The root mean squared errors in tropical cyclone wind speed reduce by 58% in ERA5, compared to ERA-Interim, indicating that the mean sea-level pressure and corresponding strong 10-m winds in tropical cyclones greatly improved from ERA-Interim to ERA5. For four of the eight historical events we validate the modelled storm surge heights with tide gauge observations. For Hurricane Irma, the modelled surge height increases from 0.88 m with ERA-Interim to 2.68 m with ERA5, compared to an observed surge height of 2.64 m. We also examine how future advances in climate modelling can potentially further improve global storm surge modelling by comparing the results for ERA-Interim and ERA5 against the operational Integrated Forecasting System (0.125° × 0.125°). We find that a further increase in model resolution results in a better representation of the wind fields and associated storm surges, especially for small size tropical cyclones. Overall, our results show that recent advances in global climate modelling have the potential to increase the accuracy of early-warning systems and coastal flood hazard assessments at the global scale.

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“…A number of small-scale processes of oceanographic and hydrological origin, specific to coastal areas, may indeed modify the rate of sea level rise near the land: e.g., continental slope and shelf currents, changes in the wave characteristics, fresh water input from rivers in estuaries, etc. (Woodworth et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altimetry-based sea level trends along the coasts of Western Africa

Marti

Cazenave

Birol

et al. 2021

Advances in Space Research

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We present results of contemporary coastal sea level changes along the coasts of western Africa, obtained from a dedicated reprocessing of satellite altimetry data done in the context of the ESA 'Climate Change Initiative' sea level project. High sampling rate (20 Hz) sea level data from the Jason-1 and Jason-2 missions over a 14-year-long time span (July 2002 to June 2016) are considered. The data were first retracked using the ALES adaptative leading edge subwaveform retracker. The X-TRACK processing system developed to optimize the completeness and accuracy of the corrected sea level time series in coastal ocean areas was then applied. From the 14-year long sea level time series finally obtained, we estimate sea level trends along the Jason-1 & 2 tracks covering the study region. We analyze regional variations in sea level trends, with a focus on the changes observed between the open ocean to the coastal zone. Compared to the conventional 1 Hz sea level products dedicated to open ocean applications, the retracked 20 Hz measurements used in this study allow us to retrieve valid sea level information much closer to the coast (less than 3-4 km to the coast, depending on the satellite track location). The main objective of this study is twofold: (1) provide sea level products in the coastal areas from reprocessed altimetry data and (2) check whether sea level changes at the coast differ from that reported in the open ocean with conventional altimetry products. In the selected region, results show that over the study period, sea level trends observed near the coast of western Africa are significantly different than offshore trends. In order to assess the robustness of the results, detailed analyses are performed at several locations to discriminate between possible drifts in the geophysical corrections and physical processes potentially able to explain the sea level changes observed close to the coast.

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Forcing Factors Affecting Sea Level Changes at the Coast

Cited by 236 publications

References 273 publications

The Contribution of Wind-Generated Waves to Coastal Sea-Level Changes

The Contribution of Wind-Generated Waves to Coastal Sea-Level Changes

Advancing global storm surge modelling using the new ERA5 climate reanalysis

Altimetry-based sea level trends along the coasts of Western Africa

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