Publication Date:
2022-06-06
Description:
© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Piecuch, C. G., Coats, S., Dangendorf, S., Landerer, F. W., Reager, J. T., Thompson, P. R., & Wahl, T. High-tide floods and storm surges during atmospheric rivers on the US West Coast. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(2), (2022): e2021GL096820, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL096820.
Description:
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) cause inland hydrological impacts related to precipitation. However, little is known about coastal hazards associated with these events. We elucidate high-tide floods (HTFs) and storm surges during ARs on the US West Coast during 1980–2016. HTFs and ARs cooccur more often than expected from chance. Between 10% and 63% of HTFs coincide with ARs on average, depending on location. However, interannual-to-decadal variations in HTFs are due more to tides and mean sea-level changes than storminess variability. Only 2–15% of ARs coincide with HTFs, suggesting that ARs typically must cooccur with high tides or mean sea levels to cause HTFs. Storm surges during ARs reflect local wind, pressure, and precipitation forcing: meridional wind and barometric pressure are primary drivers, but precipitation makes secondary contributions. This study highlights the relevance of ARs to coastal impacts, clarifies the drivers of storm surge during ARs, and identifies future research directions.
Description:
This work was supported by National Aeronautics and Space Administration Sea Level Change Team awards 80NSSC20K1241 and 80NM0018D0004 (to C. G. P.). The contribution from F. W. L. and J. T. R. represents research carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004).
Keywords:
atmospheric rivers
;
high-tide flooding
;
storm surge
;
coastal impacts
;
coastal hazards
;
sea level
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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