Abstract
Using statistically downscaled atmospheric forcing, we performed a numerical investigation to evaluate future climate’s impact on storm surges along the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. east coast. The focus is on the impact of climatic changes in wind pattern and surface pressure while neglecting sea level rise and other factors. We adapted the regional ocean model system (ROMS) to the study region with a mesh grid size of 7–10 km in horizontal and 18 vertical layers. The model was validated by a hindcast of the coastal sea levels in the winter of 2008. Model’s robustness was confirmed by the good agreement between model-simulated and observed sea levels at 37 tidal gages. Two 10-year forecasts, one for the IPCC Pre-Industry (PI) and the other for the A1FI scenario, were conducted. The differences in model-simulated surge heights under the two climate scenarios were analyzed. We identified three types of responses in extreme surge heights to future climate: a clear decrease in Middle Atlantic Bight, an increase in the western Gulf of Mexico, and non-significant response for the remaining area. Such spatial pattern is also consistent with previous projections of sea surface winds and ocean wave heights.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory for providing GFDL CM2.1 data and National Ocean Service for providing in-situ sea level observations. Research support provided by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3101000-841413030), NOAA (Grant No. NA11NOS0120033), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant Nos. 41506012, 9115 21884 and 41506027), the Fund of Global Change and Air-Sea Interaction (Grant No. GAST-GEOGE-03). The author also acknowledges support by NASA through grant NNX13AD80G.
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Yao, Z., Xue, Z., He, R. et al. Climate projections of spatial variations in coastal storm surges along the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. east coast. J. Ocean Univ. China 16, 1–7 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-017-3012-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-017-3012-6