Assessment of Hurricane Ivan impact on chlorophyll-a in Pensacola Bay by MODIS 250 m remote sensing

The impact of Hurricane Ivan on water quality in Pensacola Bay was investigated by MODIS 250 m remote sensing of chlorophyll-a concentrations at different time slots before and after the hurricane event. Before the hurricane, the mean chlorophyll-a in the Bay was 5.3 μg/L. Heavy rainfall occurred during the hurricane landfall. The 48 h rainfall reached 40 cm and the peak storm surge reached 3 m on 9/16. After the rainstorm and during the storm surge on 9/17/2004, the mean chlorophyll-a concentration substantially increased to 14.7 μg/L. 26.3% water area was in the poor-water-quality condition (chl-a > 20 μg/L). This indicates that heavy nutrient loads from urban stormwater runoff and storm-surge inundation simulated chlorophyll bloom. After the end of the storm surge on 9/18/2004, the mean chlorophyll dropped to 2.0 μg/L, suggesting the effective flushing of polluted water from the bay to the Gulf of Mexico by the storm-surge. The good water quality condition lasted for almost several weeks after the storm surge. The peak river flow, arriving on the 4th day after the peak storm surge, did not alter the good water quality situation in the bay. This indicates that urban stormwater runoff rather than the river inflow is the major pollutant source for water quality in Pensacola Bay during the hurricane.     

Estimating tsunami inundation from hurricane storm surge predictions along the U.S. gulf coast

Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coasts have been included in the U.S. Tsunami Warning System since 2005. While the tsunami risk for the GOM is low, tsunamis generated by local submarine landslides pose the greatest potential threat, as evidenced by several large ancient submarine mass failures identified in the northern GOM basin. Given the lack of significant historical tsunami evidence in the GOM, the potential threat of landslide tsunamis in this region is assessed from a worst-case scenario perspective based on a set of events including the large ancient failures and most likely extreme events determined by a probabilistic approach. Since tsunamis are not well-understood along the Gulf Coast, we investigate tsunami inundation referenced to category-specific hurricane storm surge levels, which are relatively well established along the Gulf Coast, in order to provide information for assessing the potential threat of tsunamis which is more understandable and accessible to emergency managers. Based on tsunami inundation studies prepared for the communities of South Padre Island, TX, Galveston, TX, Mobile, AL, Panama City, FL, and Tampa, FL, we identify regional trends of tsunami inundation in terms of modeled storm surge inundation. The general trends indicate that tsunami inundation can well exceed the level of storm surge from major hurricanes in open beachfront and barrier island regions, while more interior areas are less threatened. Such information can be used to better prepare for tsunami events as well as provide a preliminary estimate of tsunami hazard in locations where detailed tsunami inundation studies have not been completed.     

ParBreZo: A parallel,unstructured grid,Godunov-type,shallow-water code for high-resolution flood inundation modeling at the regional scale

Topographic data are increasingly available at high resolutions (<10 m) over large spatial extents to support detailed flood inundation modeling and loss estimation analyses required for flood risk management. This paper describes ParBreZo, the parallel implementation of a two-dimensional, Godunov-type, shallow-water code, to address the computational demand of high-resolution flood modeling at the regional scale (10²–10⁴ km²). A systematic approach to unstructured grid partitioning (domain decomposition) is presented, and the Single Process Multiple Data (SPMD) paradigm of distributed-memory parallelism is implemented so the code can be executed on computer clusters with distributed memory, shared memory, or some combination of the two (now common with multi-core architectures). In a fully-wetted, load-balanced test problem, the code scales very well with a parallel efficiency of close to 100% on up to 512 processes (maximum tested). A weighted grid partitioning is used to partially address the load balancing challenge posed by partially wetted domains germane to flooding applications, where the flood extent varies over time, while the partitioning remains static. An urban dam-break flood test problem shows that weighted partitions achieve a parallel efficiency exceeding 70% using up to 48 processes. This corresponds to a 97% reduction in execution time so results are obtained in a matter of minutes, which is attractive for routine engineering analyses. A hurricane storm surge test problem shows that a 10 m resolution, 12 h inundation forecast for a 40 km length of coastline can be completed in under 2 h using 512 processors. Hence, if coupled to a hurricane forecast system capable of resolving storm surge, inundation forecasts could be made at 10 m resolution with at least a 10 h lead time.     

Discontinuous Galerkin methods for modeling Hurricane storm surge

Storm surge due to hurricanes and tropical storms can result in significant loss of life, property damage, and long-term damage to coastal ecosystems and landscapes. Computer modeling of storm surge can be used for two primary purposes: forecasting of surge as storms approach land for emergency planning and evacuation of coastal populations, and hindcasting of storms for determining risk, development of mitigation strategies, coastal restoration and sustainability.Storm surge is modeled using the shallow water equations, coupled with wind forcing and in some events, models of wave energy. In this paper, we will describe a depth-averaged (2D) model of circulation in spherical coordinates. Tides, riverine forcing, atmospheric pressure, bottom friction, the Coriolis effect and wind stress are all important for characterizing the inundation due to surge. The problem is inherently multi-scale, both in space and time. To model these problems accurately requires significant investments in acquiring high-fidelity input (bathymetry, bottom friction characteristics, land cover data, river flow rates, levees, raised roads and railways, etc.), accurate discretization of the computational domain using unstructured finite element meshes, and numerical methods capable of capturing highly advective flows, wetting and drying, and multi-scale features of the solution.The discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method appears to allow for many of the features necessary to accurately capture storm surge physics. The DG method was developed for modeling shocks and advection-dominated flows on unstructured finite element meshes. It easily allows for adaptivity in both mesh (h) and polynomial order (p) for capturing multi-scale spatial events. Mass conservative wetting and drying algorithms can be formulated within the DG method.In this paper, we will describe the application of the DG method to hurricane storm surge. We discuss the general formulation, and new features which have been added to the model to better capture surge in complex coastal environments. These features include modifications to the method to handle spherical coordinates and maintain still flows, improvements in the stability post-processing (i.e. slope-limiting), and the modeling of internal barriers for capturing overtopping of levees and other structures. We will focus on applications of the model to recent events in the Gulf of Mexico, including Hurricane Ike.     

Prehistorical frequency of high‐energy marine inundation events driven by typhoons in the Bay of Bangkok (Thailand), interpreted from coastal carbonate boulders

Rapidly rising populations of low‐lying megacities in Asia mean that understanding the potential risk of coastal flooding by storm surge is of paramount concern. The city of Bangkok and the wider Chao Phraya River delta at the head of the Gulf of Thailand is a region topographically vulnerable to coastal flooding, but without the record of a high‐energy marine inundation (HEMI) event in historical time owing to the atypical path that a typhoon must take to be able to produce such an event. This work builds upon previous findings that identified coastal depositional evidence for HEMI events in the form of coastal carbonate boulders (CCBs) located on Ko Larn Island in the eastern Bay of Bangkok. The HEMI events were most likely driven by typhoons and the CCBs are therefore interpreted as typhoon deposits. Through uranium/thorium dating, it is revealed that from ad 1400 to ad 1600 the Bay of Bangkok possibly experienced a phase of relatively heightened storm impact. During this period, the frequency of typhoon‐driven HEMI events was approximately four events in 200 years. Waves generated onshore minimum flow velocities (MFVs) in excess of 5 m/s. Such exceptional MFVs are unlikely to be produced during the annual northeast monsoon, but are consistent with typhoon‐impacted coastlines elsewhere in the tropical Asia–Pacific region where similar CCB evidence exists. Since ad 1600, the Bay of Bangkok has enjoyed a relatively quiescent phase, recording less frequent HEMI events and of lower magnitude. However, the re‐occurrence of a typhoon‐driven HEMI event on the scale of the prehistorical events that emplaced carbonate boulders at elevation on Ko Larn Island would threaten low‐lying coasts in the Bay of Bangkok, including the Chao Phraya delta, with potentially damaging inundation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Topographic accuracy assessment of bare earth lidar-derived unstructured meshes

This study is focused on the integration of bare earth lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) data into unstructured (triangular) finite element meshes and the implications on simulating storm surge inundation using a shallow water equations model. A methodology is developed to compute root mean square error (RMSE) and the 95th percentile of vertical elevation errors using four different interpolation methods (linear, inverse distance weighted, natural neighbor, and cell averaging) to resample bare earth lidar and lidar-derived digital elevation models (DEMs) onto unstructured meshes at different resolutions. The results are consolidated into a table of optimal interpolation methods that minimize the vertical elevation error of an unstructured mesh for a given mesh node density. The cell area averaging method performed most accurate when DEM grid cells within 0.25 times the ratio of local element size and DEM cell size were averaged. The methodology is applied to simulate inundation extent and maximum water levels in southern Mississippi due to Hurricane Katrina, which illustrates that local changes in topography such as adjusting element size and interpolation method drastically alter simulated storm surge locally and non-locally. The methods and results presented have utility and implications to any modeling application that uses bare earth lidar.     

On the interaction between a hurricane,the Gulf Stream and coastal sea level

Tropical storms and hurricanes in the western North Atlantic Ocean can impact the US East Coast in several ways. Direct effects include storm surges, winds, waves, and precipitation and indirect effects include changes in ocean dynamics that consequently impact the coast. Hurricane Matthew [October, 2016] was chosen as a case study to demonstrate the interaction between an offshore storm, the Gulf Stream (GS) and coastal sea level. A regional numerical ocean model was used, to conduct sensitivity experiments with different surface forcing, using wind and heat flux data from an operational hurricane-ocean coupled forecast system. An additional experiment used the observed Florida Current (FC) transport during the hurricane as an inflow boundary condition. The experiments show that the hurricane caused a disruption in the GS flow that resulted in large spatial variations in temperatures with cooling of up to ~?4 °C by surface heat loss, but the interaction of the winds with the GS flow also caused some local warming near fronts and eddies (relative to simulations without a hurricane). A considerable weakening of the FC transport (~?30%) has been observed during the hurricane (a reduction of ~?10 Sv in 3 days; 1Sv?=?10⁶ m³ s^?1), so the impact of the FC was explored by the model. Unlike the abrupt and large wind-driven storm surge (up to 2 m water level change within 12 h in the South Atlantic Bight), the impact of the weakening GS on sea level is smaller but lasted for several days after the hurricane dissipated, as seen in both the model and altimeter data. These results can explain observations that show minor tidal flooding along long stretches of coasts for several days following passages of hurricanes. Further analysis showed the short-term impact of the hurricane winds on kinetic energy versus the long-term impact of the hurricane-induced mixing on potential energy, whereas several days are needed to reestablish the stratification and rebuild the strength of the GS to its pre-hurricane conditions. Understanding the interaction between storms, the Gulf Stream and coastal sea level can help to improve prediction of sea level rise and coastal flooding.     

The effect of tides and storms on the sediment transport across a Dutch barrier island

Under natural conditions, barrier islands might grow vertically and migrate onshore under the influence of long‐term sea level rise. Sediment is transported onshore during storm‐induced overwash and inundation. However, on many Dutch Wadden Islands, dune openings are closed off by artificial sand‐drift dikes that prevent the influx of sediment during storms. It has been argued that creating openings in the dune row to allow regular flooding on barrier islands can have a positive effect on the sediment budget, but the dominant hydrodynamic processes and their influence on sediment transport during overwash and inundation are unknown. Here, we present an XBeach model study to investigate how sediment transport during overwash and inundation across the beach of a typical mesotidal Wadden Sea barrier island is influenced by wave, tide and storm surge conditions. Firstly, we validated the model XBeach with field data on waves and currents during island inundation. In general, the XBeach model performed well. Secondly, we studied the long‐term sediment transport across the barrier island. We distinguished six representative inundation classes, ranging from frequently occurring, low‐energy events to infrequent, high‐energy events, and simulated the hydrodynamics and sediment transport during these events. An analysis of the model simulations shows that larger storm events cause larger cross‐shore sediment transport, but the net sediment exchange during a storm levels off or even becomes smaller for the largest inundation classes because it is counteracted by larger mean water levels in the Wadden Sea that oppose or even reverse sediment transport during inundation. When taking into account the frequency of occurrence of storms we conclude that the cumulative effect of relatively mild storms on long‐term cross‐shore sediment transport is much larger than that of the large storm events. © 2017 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Storm surge computations in estuarine and near-coastal regions: the Mersey estuary and Irish Sea area

An unstructured grid storm surge model of the west coast of Britain, incorporating a high-resolution representation of the Mersey estuary is used to examine storm surge dynamics in the region. The focus of the study is the major surge that occurred during the period 11–14 November 1977, which has been investigated previously using uniform grid finite difference models and a finite element model of the west coast of Britain. However, none of these models included the Mersey estuary. Comparison of solutions in the eastern Irish Sea with those computed with these earlier models showed that, away from the Liverpool Bay region, the inclusion of the Mersey estuary had little effect. However, at the entrance to the Mersey, its inclusion did influence the solution. By including a detailed representation of the Mersey estuary within the model, it was possible to conduct a detailed study of storm surge propagation in the Mersey, which had never previously been performed. This detailed study showed for the first time that the surge’s temporal variability within the estuary is influenced by surge elevation at its entrance. This varies with time as a function of spatial and temporal variations of wind stress over the west coast of Britain. Within the Mersey, calculations show that the spatial variability is mainly determined by changes in bottom topography, which had not been included in earlier finite difference models. However, since water depth is influenced by variations in tidal elevation, this, together with tide surge interaction through bottom friction and momentum advection, influences the surge. The ability of the finite element model to vary the mesh in near-shore regions to such an extent that it can resolve the Mersey and hence the impact of the Mersey estuary upon the Liverpool Bay circulation shows that it has distinct advantages over earlier finite difference models. In the absence of detailed measurements within the Mersey at the time of the surge, it was not possible to validate predicted surge elevations within the Mersey. However, significant insight into physical processes influencing the surge propagation down the estuary, its reflection and spatial/temporal variability could be gained.     

Evaluation of weather forecast systems for storm surge modeling in the Chesapeake Bay

Accurate forecast of sea-level heights in coastal areas depends, among other factors, upon a reliable coupling of a meteorological forecast system to a hydrodynamic and wave system. This study evaluates the predictive skills of the coupled circulation and wind-wave model system (ADCIRC+SWAN) for simulating storm tides in the Chesapeake Bay, forced by six different products: (1) Global Forecast System (GFS), (2) Climate Forecast System (CFS) version 2, (3) North American Mesoscale Forecast System (NAM), (4) Rapid Refresh (RAP), (5) European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and (6) the Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT2). This evaluation is based on the hindcasting of four events: Irene (2011), Sandy (2012), Joaquin (2015), and Jonas (2016). By comparing the simulated water levels to observations at 13 monitoring stations, we have found that the ADCIR+SWAN System forced by the following: (1) the HURDAT2-based system exhibited the weakest statistical skills owing to a noteworthy overprediction of the simulated wind speed; (2) the ECMWF, RAP, and NAM products captured the moment of the peak and moderately its magnitude during all storms, with a correlation coefficient ranging between 0.98 and 0.77; (3) the CFS system exhibited the worst averaged root-mean-square difference (excepting HURDAT2); (4) the GFS system (the lowest horizontal resolution product tested) resulted in a clear underprediction of the maximum water elevation. Overall, the simulations forced by NAM and ECMWF systems induced the most accurate results best accuracy to support water level forecasting in the Chesapeake Bay during both tropical and extra-tropical storms.     

Magnitude of Hurricane Ike storm surge sedimentation: implications for coastal marsh aggradation

There is a paucity of information on the regional distribution and magnitude of hurricane storm surge sedimentation. This study assesses the spatial extent and magnitude of Hurricane Ike's (2008) storm surge sedimentation and discusses implications for the role of hurricanes in marsh aggradation. The characteristics of the storm surge deposit, including thickness, inland penetration, volume and mass, were determined for 15 transects across marshes bordering the Gulf of Mexico in south‐eastern Texas and south‐western Louisiana. The deposit is up to 0·85 m thick, extends up to 3·6 km inland, and has an estimated volume of about 13·7 million m³ and an estimated mass of about 16·2 million metric tons. This level of sedimentation is one to two orders of magnitude larger than other potential sources of marsh sedimentation, including annual riverine inputs and inputs from alongshore sediment transport. The study findings add support to a growing body of evidence that hurricanes may be the predominant sediment source for long‐term aggradation of many coastal marshes bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Amplification of the storm surges in shallow waters of the Pertuis Charentais (Bay of Biscay,France)

The Pertuis Charentais are shallow coastal embayments formed by the islands of Oleron and Re in the north-eastern Bay of Biscay. The low-lying coasts of the Pertuis Charentais are susceptible to extensive flooding caused by the storm surges generated in the North Atlantic. Numerical modelling of the 24 October 1999 surge event is performed in the present study in order to elucidate the impact of the wind-wave-tide-surge interactions on the surge propagation in the Pertuis Charentais. A 2D numerical model is constructed to simulate the wave and tide-surge propagation on a high-resolution finite-element grid by using the TELEMAC and TOMAWAC software. The effect of the wave-induced enhancement on the sea surface drag and on the bottom friction is evaluated by using the models of Janssen (1991) and Christoffersen and Jonsson (1985), respectively. The radiation stress is estimated by employing the approach of Longuet-Higgins and Stewart (1964). It is demonstrated that the peak surge in the night on 23–24 October has been amplified inside the Pertuis Charentais by about 20 cm due to the wind-wave interactions with the tide-surge currents. These interactions are strongest at the entrance to the Pertuis Charentais where the sea surface drag coefficient is significantly increased by the wind-wave coupling. The effect of the wave-tide-surge interactions is large enough to be included in the flood forecasting systems of this region.     

Modeling studies of the upper ocean response to a tropical cyclone

A coupled ocean and boundary layer flux numerical modeling system is used to study the upper ocean response to surface heat and momentum fluxes associated with a major hurricane, namely, Hurricane Dennis (July 2005) in the Gulf of Mexico. A suite of experiments is run using this modeling system, constructed by coupling a Navy Coastal Ocean Model simulation of the Gulf of Mexico to an atmospheric flux model. The modeling system is forced by wind fields produced from satellite scatterometer and atmospheric model wind data, and by numerical weather prediction air temperature data. The experiments are initialized from a data assimilative hindcast model run and then forced by surface fluxes with no assimilation for the time during which Hurricane Dennis impacted the region. Four experiments are run to aid in the analysis: one is forced by heat and momentum fluxes, one by only momentum fluxes, one by only heat fluxes, and one with no surface forcing. An equation describing the change in the upper ocean hurricane heat potential due to the storm is developed. Analysis of the model results show that surface heat fluxes are primarily responsible for widespread reduction (0.5°–1.5°C) of sea surface temperature over the inner West Florida Shelf 100–300 km away from the storm center. Momentum fluxes are responsible for stronger surface cooling (2°C) near the center of the storm. The upper ocean heat loss near the storm center of more than 200 MJ/m² is primarily due to the vertical flux of thermal energy between the surface layer and deep ocean. Heat loss to the atmosphere during the storm’s passage is approximately 100–150 MJ/m². The upper ocean cooling is enhanced where the preexisting mixed layer is shallow, e.g., within a cyclonic circulation feature, although the heat flux to the atmosphere in these locations is markedly reduced.     

Objective rapid delineation of areas at risk from block-and-ash pyroclastic flows and surges

Assessments of pyroclastic flow (PF) hazards are commonly based on mapping of PF and surge deposits and estimations of inundation limits, and/or computer models of varying degrees of sophistication. In volcanic crises a PF hazard map may be sorely needed, but limited time, exposures, or safety aspects may preclude fieldwork, and insufficient time or baseline data may be available for reliable dynamic simulations. We have developed a statistically constrained simulation model for block-and-ash type PFs to estimate potential areas of inundation by adapting methodology from Iverson et al. (Geol Soc America Bull 110:972–984, 1998) for lahars. The predictive equations for block-and-ash PFs are calibrated with data from several volcanoes and given by A = (0.05 to 0.1)V ^2/3, B = (35 to 40)V ^2/3, where A is cross-sectional area of inundation, B is planimetric area and V is deposit volume. The proportionality coefficients were obtained from regression analyses and comparison of simulations to mapped deposits. The method embeds the predictive equations in a GIS program coupled with DEM topography, using the LAHARZ program of Schilling (1998). Although the method is objective and reproducible, any PF hazard zone so computed should be considered as an approximate guide only, due to uncertainties on the coefficients applicable to individual PFs, the authenticity of DEM details, and the volume of future collapses. The statistical uncertainty of the predictive equations, which imply a factor of two or more in predicting A or B for a specified V, is superposed on the uncertainty of forecasting V for the next PF to descend a particular valley. Multiple inundation zones, produced by simulations using a selected range of volumes, partly accommodate these uncertainties. The resulting maps show graphically that PF inundation potentials are highest nearest volcano sources and along valley thalwegs, and diminish with distance from source and lateral distance from thalweg. The model does not explicitly consider dynamic behavior, which can be important. Ash-cloud surge impact limits must be extended beyond PF hazard zones and we provide several approaches to do this. The method has been used to supply PF and surge hazard maps in two crises: Merapi 2006; and Montserrat 2006–2007.     

Evaluating the effect of scale in flood inundation modelling in urban environments

Cellular‐based approaches for flood inundation modelling have been extensively calibrated and evaluated for the prediction of flood flows on rural river reaches. However, there has only been limited application of these approaches to urban environments, where the need for flood management is greatest. Practical application of two‐dimensional (2D) flood inundation models is often limited by computation time and processing power on standard desktop PCs when attempting to resolve flows on the high‐resolution grids necessary to replicate urban features. Consequently, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of coarse grids to represent flood flows through urban environments. To examine these effects, LISFLOOD‐FP, a 2D storage cell model, is applied to hypothetical flooding scenarios in Greenfields, Glasgow. Grid resampling techniques in GIS software packages are evaluated and a bilinear gridding technique appears to provide the most accurate and physically intuitive results. A gridding method maintaining sharp elevation changes at building interfaces and neighbouring land is presented and estimates of the discretization noise associated with the coarse resolution grids suggest little improvement over current gridding methods. The variation in model results from the friction sensitivity analysis suggests a non‐stationary response to Manning's n with changing model resolution. Model results suggests that a coarse resolution model for urban applications is limited by the representation of urban media in coarse model grids. Furthermore, critical length scales related to building dimensions and building separation distances exist in urban areas that determine maximum possible grid resolutions for hydraulic models of urban flooding. Copyright ©, 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of storm surge/tide predictions between a 2-D operational forecast system, the regional tide/storm surge model (RTSM), and the 3-D regional ocean modeling system (ROMS)

In this study, we compare simulated storm surges run on the two-dimensional operational storm surge/tide forecast system (regional tide/storm surge model (RTSM), based on Princeton ocean model) of the Korean Meteorological Administration and the three-dimensional regional ocean modeling system (ROMS), using observational data from 30 coastal tidal stations of three typhoons that struck Korea in 2007. A maximum positive bias of 6.8 cm was found for Typhoon Manyi predicted by ROMS, while a maximum negative bias of −7.4 cm was shown for Typhoon Nari predicted by RTSM. For all three typhoons, the total averaged root mean square error was 10 cm for the two models. Although the statistical results for the storm surge comparison between the observations and RTSM predictions were better than those for ROMS, with the exception of Typhoon Nari, the spatial and temporal variations of ROMS were larger than those of RTSM.     

Hurricane-induced motions and interaction with ocean currents

Hurricanes produce mixing and flow divergences (and convergences) that alter the upper-ocean heat content (OHC), which in turn affects the storm. Ocean observations under a hurricane are rare, making it difficult to validate forecast models. Past research have mainly focused on OHC-changes by vertical mixing and tacitly assumed that horizontal transports are slowly varying. Moreover, effects of coastal boundaries on ocean responses to hurricanes are generally omitted. This work uses satellite data to detect and verify forecast isopycnal motions under hurricane Wilma (Oct/16–26/2005) in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The model is then used to show that Wilma-induced convergences in northwestern Caribbean Sea produce increased Yucatan-Channel transport into the Gulf ahead of the storm, and the Yucatan–Loop Current front diverts most of this heat around the Loop. This response is distinct from that of an ocean without the Loop, for which warming is widespread north of the channel. These intricate ocean responses can impact hurricane predictions.     

Forest blowdown impacts of Hurricane Rita on fluvial systems

Hurricane Rita, a category three hurricane which struck the US Gulf Coast near the Louisiana/Texas border in 2005, did not cause extensive river flooding. However, the storm did result in extensive forest damage and tree blowdown. High‐resolution post‐storm aerial photography allowed an inventory of river bank trees blown into the channel along the lower Neches and Sabine Rivers of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. Blowdowns directly into the channel averaged 9·3 per kilometer in the lower Neches and 13·4 in the lower Sabine River, but individual reaches 10 to 20 km in length had rates of 20 to 44 blowdowns per kilometer. Though large woody debris (LWD) from Hurricane Rita was widely perceived to reduce the capacity of channels to convey flow, no strong evidence exists of increased flooding or significant reductions in channel conveyance capacity due to LWD from the storm. The Rita blowdown inventory also allowed an assessment of whether similar blowdown events could account for major logjams and rafts on Red, Atchafalaya, and Colorado Rivers on the Gulf Coast, which blocked navigation from tens to hundreds of kilometers in the 1800s. Results from Hurricane Rita suggest that blowdown into channels alone – not withstanding blowdown elsewhere in the river valleys or along tributaries which could deliver LWD to the river – is sufficient to completely block channels, thus providing a plausible mechanism for initiating such (pre)historic log rafts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical study of surface water circulation around Sekisei Lagoon, southwest Japan

This paper discusses the variability of surface currents around Sekisei Lagoon using a nested grid ocean circulation model. We developed a triple-nested grid system that consists of a coarse-resolution (1/60° or ∼1.85 km) model off Taiwan, an intermediate-resolution (1/300° or ∼370 m) model around the Yaeyama Islands, and a fine-resolution (1/900° or ∼123 m) model of Sekisei Lagoon. The nested grid system was forced by wind and heat flux calculated from six-hourly atmospheric reanalysis data and integrated over the period from May to July 2003. The coarse-resolution model was driven by lateral boundary conditions calculated from daily ocean reanalysis data to include realistic variation of the Kuroshio and mesoscale eddies with spatial scales of ∼500–700 km in the open ocean. The tidal forcing was included in the intermediate-resolution model by interpolating sea level data obtained from a data-assimilative tidal model. The results were then used to drive the fine-resolution model to simulate the surface water circulation around Sekisei lagoon. Model results show that (1) currents inside the lagoon are mainly driven by tide and wind; (2) there exists a strong southwestward current along the bottom slope in the southeast portion of the lagoon; the current is mainly driven by remote mesoscale eddies and at times intensified by the local wind; (3) the flow relaxation scheme is effective in reducing biases along the open boundaries. The simulated currents were used to examine the retention and dispersion of passive particles in the surface layer. Results show that the surface dispersion in the strong open ocean current region is significantly higher than that inside the lagoon.     

Predicting dissolved oxygen in the Chesapeake Bay: applications and implications

Eutrophic depletion of dissolved oxygen (DO) and its consequences for ecosystem dynamics have been a central theme of research, assessment and management policies for several decades in the Chesapeake Bay. Ongoing forecast efforts predict the extent of the summer hypoxic/anoxic area due to nutrient loads from the watershed. However, these models neither predict DO levels nor address the intricate interactions among various ecological processes. The prediction of spatially explicit DO levels in the Chesapeake Bay can eventually lead to a reliable depiction of the comprehensive ecological structure and functioning, and can also allow the quantification of the role of nutrient reduction strategies in water quality management. In this paper, we describe a three dimensional empirical model to predict DO levels in the Chesapeake Bay as a function of water temperature, salinity and dissolved nutrient concentrations (TDN and TDP). The residual analysis shows that predicted DO values compare well with observations. Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) and root mean square error-observations standard deviation ratio (RSR) are used to evaluate the performance of the empirical model; the scores demonstrate the usability of model predictions (NSE, surface layer = 0.82–0.86; middle layer = 0.65–0.82; bottom layer = 0.70–0.82; RSR surface layer = 0.37–0.44; middle layer = 0.43–0.58 and bottom layer = 0.43–0.54). The predicted DO values and other physical outputs from downscaling of regional weather and climate predictions, or forecasts from hydrodynamic models, can be used to forecast various ecological components. Such forecasts would be useful for both recreational and commercial users of the Chesapeake Bay.