Meteotsunamis in the Laurentian Great Lakes

Abstract

The generation mechanism of meteotsunamis, which are meteorologically induced water waves with spatial/temporal characteristics and behavior similar to seismic tsunamis, is poorly understood. We quantify meteotsunamis in terms of seasonality, causes, and occurrence frequency through the analysis of long-term water level records in the Laurentian Great Lakes. The majority of the observed meteotsunamis happen from late-spring to mid-summer and are associated primarily with convective storms. Meteotsunami events of potentially dangerous magnitude (height > 0.3 m) occur an average of 106 times per year throughout the region. These results reveal that meteotsunamis are much more frequent than follow from historic anecdotal reports. Future climate scenarios over the United States show a likely increase in the number of days favorable to severe convective storm formation over the Great Lakes, particularly in the spring season. This would suggest that the convectively associated meteotsunamis in these regions may experience an increase in occurrence frequency or a temporal shift in occurrence to earlier in the warm season. To date, meteotsunamis in the area of the Great Lakes have been an overlooked hazard.

Role of Meteorologically Induced Water Level Oscillations on Bottom Shear Stress in Freshwater Estuaries in the Great Lakes

“…Interactions between MIWLOs and river flood flows are common in Great Lakes estuaries (Bedford, ; Quinn, ; Sorensen et al, ; Trebitz, ). Based upon 15‐year data, Bechle et al () revealed that the occurrence of meteotsunamis in Lake Michigan is higher during April and July. Specifically, meteotsunamis in northern Lake Michigan usually occur in the month of April, with a secondary peak in May and June (Bechle et al, ).…”

“…Specifically, meteotsunamis in northern Lake Michigan usually occur in the month of April, with a secondary peak in May and June (Bechle et al, ). The wave height of observed meteotsunamis in the Great Lakes reach 0.6 m with period ranging from 0.2 to ~2 hr (Bechle et al, , ). Similar magnitudes with wave heights around 0.5–0.7 m were observed during the field campaign in 2012 (Linares et al, ).…”

“…Meteotsunamis occur more often than expected. Recent studies show that meteotsunamis with wave height larger than 0.3 m occur more than 100 times per year in the Great Lakes (Bechle et al, ). For example, Linares et al () identified 11 meteotsunamis with amplitudes between 0.15 and 0.74 m occurring in the Manistique River (MR) in Lake Michigan during a 2‐month period in the summer of 2012.…”

Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Analysis: Multiple Sources and Global Applications

“…There are regions where the temporal and spatial occurrences of the meteotsunamis are higher compared to the seismically induced tsunamis because the combination of the resonant factors is more common (Bechle et al, ; Wang et al, ). For this reason recent studies in the Great Lakes and the Mediterranean Sea aimed to forecast destructive events and support early warning systems (Anderson et al, ; Vilibić et al, ).…”

Towards an understanding and operational early warning of the Adriatic meteotsunamis: Project MESSI

“…Travelling air pressure disturbances are the most common generator of meteotsunamis, where the energy is transferred from the atmosphere to the ocean through a number of resonances, of which most common are Proudman resonance (PROUDMAN, 1929) and harbour resonance (RABINOVICH, 2009). At the top of a harbour these sea level oscillations can range for several metres and can flood coastal areas (VUČETIĆ et al, 2009), damage coastal infrastructure (JANSÀ et al, 2007;PATTIARATCHI & WIJERATNE, 2015), and injure and kill the people (HIBIYA & KAJIURA, 1982;BECHLE et al, 2016). Meteotsunamis has been documented to occur worldwide, while being particularly destructive in micro-tidal regions, where the coasts and the infrastructures are not adapted to large and rapid sea level oscillations.…”