Journal
ATMOSPHERE
Volume 13, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/atmos13020311
Keywords
storm surge; extreme waves; climate change; coastal infrastructure; downscaling; numerical model; hydrodynamics; ports
Funding
- Transport Canada's Transportation Assets Risk Assessment initiative
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This study uses numerical simulations to analyze the potential impacts of climate change on storm surges and waves in the British Columbia coastal waters. The findings provide crucial data for the design and operation of ports and infrastructure in the region. The research suggests that climate change may influence storm surges and wave effects in western Canada, thus affecting key ports and transportation assets.
Storm surges and waves are key climate-driven parameters affecting the design and operation of ports and other infrastructure on the coast. Reliable predictions of future storm surges and waves are not yet available for the west coast of Canada, and this data gap hinders effective climate risk assessment, planning and adaptation. This paper presents numerical simulations of storm surges and waves in British Columbia coastal waters under a future climate (Representative Concentration Pathway) scenario (RCP8.5). The numerical models were first forced by wind and surface pressure fields from the ERA-5 global reanalysis, and calibrated and validated using historical wave and water level records. The models were then driven by atmospheric data from four regional climate models (RCMs) to investigate potential changes in the frequency and magnitude of storm surges and extreme waves over the 21st century. The model outputs were analyzed to determine the potential impacts of climate change on storm surges and wave effects at key ports and transportation assets in western Canada. The study is the first of its kind to utilize unstructured, computational models to simulate storm surges and waves for the entire western Canada coastal region, while maintaining the high spatial resolution in coastal sub-basins needed to capture local dynamic responses.
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