Sea level extremes in the Caribbean Sea

Abstract

Sea level extremes in the Caribbean Sea are analyzed on the basis of hourly records from 13 tide gauges. The largest sea level extreme observed is 83 cm at Port Spain. The largest nontidal residual in the records is 76 cm, forced by a category 5 hurricane. Storm surges in the Caribbean are primarily caused by tropical storms and stationary cold fronts intruding the basin. However, the seasonal signal and mesoscale eddies also contribute to the creation of extremes. The five stations that have more than 20 years of data show significant trends in the extremes suggesting that flooding events are expected to become more frequent in the future. The observed trends in extremes are caused by mean sea level rise. There is no evidence of secular changes in the storm activity. Sea level return periods have also been estimated. In the south Colombian Basin, where large hurricane-induced surges are rare, stable estimates can be obtained with 30 years of data or more. For the north of the basin, where large hurricane-induced surges are more frequent, at least 40 years of data are required. This suggests that the present data set is not sufficiently long for robust estimates of return periods. ENSO variability correlates with the nontidal extremes, indicating a reduction of the storm activity during positive ENSO events. The period with the highest extremes is around October, when the various sea level contributors' maxima coincide.

Influence of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding

“…Reverse effects are seen for La Niña. These patterns are consistent with previous studies based on tide gauge stations (Barnard et al, ; M. Feng et al, ; Menéndez & Woodworth, ; Torres & Tsimplis, ; Woodworth & Blackman, ). For the surge levels, correlations are significant for 27% of the output locations, with values up to 0.73 (Figure a).…”

“…The use of tropical cyclone track data or higher resolution climate models may be possible ways to overcome this issue. As it is known that ENSO influences tropical cyclone variability around the world (Chan, ; X. Feng & Tsimplis, ; Kuleshov et al, ; Saunders et al, ; Torres & Tsimplis, ), and as tropical cyclones often induce the most extreme surge, this may also lead to a larger signal of ENSO in extreme sea levels. Finally, for our analysis we focused on the effect of ENSO on coastal flooding induced by the combination of astronomical tides and storm surges.…”

“…Furthermore, the anomalous ocean‐atmosphere conditions during ENSO can induce changes in the intensity, frequency, and tracks of storms, thereby affecting the generation of extremes. Various studies have shown ENSO's influence on tropical (Chan, ; X. Feng & Tsimplis, ; Kuleshov et al, ; Saunders et al, ; Torres & Tsimplis, ) and extratropical cyclone activity (Eichler & Higgins, ; Lambert, ; Sweet & Zervas, ).…”

Sobre cambios en la línea de costa entre 1735 y 2011 y la subsidencia en la Bahía de Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

“…Las series de tiempo son referenciadas al primer año de nivel medio de mar. Tomada de Torres & Tsimplis (2014) Espaciales del Servicio Geológico Colombiano, GIGE-SGC, instaló una estación geodésica espacial del GNSS en predios del CIOH a finales de octubre de 2014. La instalación se hizo directamente sobre el terreno, con el fin de garantizar estabilidad en la posición de la antena y obtener observaciones de gran confiabilidad.…”

Study on the storm surges induced by cold waves in the Northern East China Sea

“…Previous studies have investigated the sea level extremes in certain areas (e.g. Butler et al, 2007;Feng and Tsimplis, 2014;Hsueh and Romea, 1983;Hsueh et al, 1986;Torres and Tsimplis, 2014) and the storm surges induced by hurricanes or typhoons (e.g. As-Salek, 1998;Rego and Li, 2010;Wang et al, 2007;Weisberg and Zheng, 2006) in detail.…”