Long-term trends in storm surge climate derived from an ensemble of global surge reconstructions

Tadesse, Michael Getachew; Wahl, Thomas; Rashid, M. M.; Dangendorf, Sönke; Rodríguez-Enríquez, Alejandra; Talke, Stefan A.

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-17099-x

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…We are not aware of previous global estimates of storm surge trends from model data. Although, Tadesse et al 23 did determine storm surge trends at tide gauge locations concentrated in western Europe, North America, Japan and southern Australia. Their findings 23 (see their Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An assessment of whether long-term global changes in waves and storm surges have impacted global coastlines

Ghanavati

Young

Ranasinghe

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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A common inference in research studies of observed and projected changes in global ocean wave height and storm surge, is that such changes are potentially important for long-term coastal management. Despite numerous studies of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on trends in global wind and waves, a clear link to impacts on sandy coastlines, at global scale, is yet to be demonstrated. This study presents a first-pass assessment of the potential link between historical trends in global wave and storm surge values and recession/progradation rates of sandy coastlines since the 1980s. Global datasets of waves, surge and shoreline change rate are used for this purpose. Over the past 30 + years, we show that there have been clear changes in waves and storm surge at global scale. The data, however, does not show an unequivocal linkage between trends in wave and storm surge climate and sandy shoreline recession/progradation. We conclude that these long-term changes in oceanographic parameters may still be too small to have a measurable impact on shoreline recession/progradation and that primary drivers such as ambient imbalances in the coastal sediment budget may be masking any such linkages.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although, Tadesse et al 23 did determine storm surge trends at tide gauge locations concentrated in western Europe, North America, Japan and southern Australia. Their findings 23 (see their Fig. 5 ) are generally consistent with the present results.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of whether long-term global changes in waves and storm surges have impacted global coastlines

Ghanavati

Young

Ranasinghe

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Extreme significant wave heights are projected to be significantly larger (up to +40%) at the end of the century under the SSP5-8.5 scenario due to the consideration of mean SLR and tides (Arns et al, 2017;Chaigneau et al, 2023) with implications on wave setup and runup and thus on projections of ESLs. In addition, recent studies have shown, on a global scale and more specifically for Europe, that historical trends in storm surges (Calafat et al, 2022;Reinert et al, 2021;Roustan et al, 2022;Tadesse et al, 2022) and tides (Pineau-Guillou et al, 2021) have been comparable in magnitude to the historical mean SLR trend.…”

Section: Projections Of Dynamic Changes In Extremesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Sea Level Rise in Europe: Observations and projections

Melet,

van de Wal,

Amores

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Sea level rise (SLR) is a major concern for Europe, where 30 million people live in the historical 1-in-100-year event flood coastal plains. The latest IPCC assessment reports provide a literature review on past and projected SLR, and their key findings are synthesized here with a focus on Europe. The present paper complements IPCC reports and contributes to the Knowledge Hub on SLR European Assessment Report. Here, the state of knowledge of observed and 21st century projected SLR and changes in extreme sea levels (ESLs) are documented with more regional information for European basins as scoped with stakeholders. In Europe, satellite altimetry shows that absolute sea level trends are on average slightly above the global mean rate, with only a few areas showing no change or a slight decrease such as central parts of the Mediterranean Sea. The spatial pattern of absolute SLR in European Seas is largely influenced by internal climate modes, especially the North Atlantic Oscillation, which varies on year-to-year to decadal timescales. In terms of relative sea level rise (RSLR), vertical land motions due to human induced subsidence and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) are important for many coastal European regions, leading to lower or even negative RSLR in the Baltic Sea, and to large rates of RSLR for subsiding coastlines. Projected 21st century local SLR for Europe is broadly in-line with projections of GMSLR rise in most places. Some European coasts are projected to experience a relative SLR by 2100 below the projected GMSLR, such as the Norwegian coast, the southern Baltic Sea, the northern part of the UK and Ireland. A relative sea level fall is projected for the northern Baltic Sea. RSLR along other EU coasts is projected to be slightly above the GMSLR, for instance the Atlantic coasts of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Higher-resolution regionalized projections are needed to better resolve dynamic sea level changes especially in semi-enclosed basins, such as the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea. In addition to ocean dynamics, GIA and Greenland ice mass loss and associated Earth gravity, rotation and deformation effects are important drivers of spatial variations of projected European RSLR. High-end estimates of SLR in Europe are particularly sensitive to uncertainties arising from the estimates of the Antarctic ice mass loss. Regarding ESLs, the frequency of occurrence of the historical centennial event (HCE) level is projected to be amplified for most EU coasts, except along the northern Baltic Sea coasts where a decreasing probability is projected because of relative sea level fall induced by GIA. The largest HCE amplification factors are projected for the southern European Seas (Mediterranean and Iberian Peninsula coasts), while the smallest amplification factors are projected in macro-tidal regions exposed to storms and induced large surges such as the south-eastern North Sea. Finally, an emphasis is given on processes that are especially important for specific regions, such as waves, tides in the north-eastern Atlantic; vertical land motion for the European Arctic and Baltic Sea; seiches, meteo-tsunamis and medicanes in the Mediterranean Sea; non-linear interactions between drivers of coastal sea level extremes in the shallow North Sea.

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“…Alternatively, data-driven models can be used to generate an ensemble (e.g. Tadesse and Wahl, 2021;Tadesse et al, 2022). However, these data-driven models are only applicable to gauge stations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainties and discrepancies in the representation of recent storm surges in a non-tidal semi-enclosed basin: a hind-cast ensemble for the Baltic Sea

Lorenz

Gräwe

2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Extreme sea level events, such as storm surges, pose a threat to coastlines around the globe. Many tide gauges have been measuring sea level and recording these extreme events for decades, some for over a century. The data from these gauges often serve as the basis for evaluating the extreme sea level statistics, which are used to extrapolate sea levels that serve as design values for coastal protection. Hydrodynamic models often have difficulty in correctly reproducing extreme sea levels and, consequently, extreme sea level statistics and trends. In this study, we generate a 13-member hind-cast ensemble for the non-tidal Baltic Sea from 1979 to 2018 using the coastal ocean model GETM (General Estuarine Transport Model). In order to cope with mean biases in maximum water levels in the simulations, we include both simulations with and without wind speed adjustments in the ensemble. We evaluate the uncertainties in the extreme value statistics and recent trends of annual maximum sea levels. Although the ensemble mean shows good agreement with observations regarding return levels and trends, we still find large variability and uncertainty within the ensemble (95 % confidence levels up to 60 cm for the 30-year return level). We argue that biases and uncertainties in the atmospheric reanalyses, e.g. variability in the representation of storms, translate directly into uncertainty within the ensemble. The translation of the variability of the 99th percentile wind speeds into the sea level elevation is in the order of the variability of the ensemble spread of the modelled maximum sea levels. Our results emphasise that 13 members are insufficient and that regionally large ensembles should be created to minimise uncertainties. This should improve the ability of the models to correctly reproduce the underlying extreme value statistics and thus provide robust estimates of climate change-induced changes in the future.

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Long-term trends in storm surge climate derived from an ensemble of global surge reconstructions

Cited by 16 publications

References 53 publications

An assessment of whether long-term global changes in waves and storm surges have impacted global coastlines

An assessment of whether long-term global changes in waves and storm surges have impacted global coastlines

Sea Level Rise in Europe: Observations and projections

Uncertainties and discrepancies in the representation of recent storm surges in a non-tidal semi-enclosed basin: a hind-cast ensemble for the Baltic Sea

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