Wave and Wind projections for United States Coasts; Mainland, Pacific Islands, and United States-Affiliated Pacific Islands

• Main Author: Erikson, L.H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: U.S. Geological Survey 2016
• Subjects: Wave, Wind U.S. Coasts, United States Coasts; Pacific; Sea ice; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5066/f72b8w3t; http://axiomdatascience.com/maps/integrated/?portal_id=51#

Coastal managers and ocean engineers rely heavily on projected average and extreme wave conditions for planning and design purposes, but when working on a local or regional scale, are faced with much uncertainty as changes in the global climate impart spatially-varying trends. Future storm conditions are likely to evolve in a fashion that is unlike past conditions and is ultimately dependent on the complicated interaction between the Earth?s atmosphere and ocean systems. Despite a lack of available data and tools to address future impacts, consideration of climate change is increasingly becoming a requirement for organizations considering future nearshore and coastal vulnerabilities. To address this need, the USGS used winds from four different atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation models (AOGCMs) or Global Climate Models (GCMs) and the WaveWatchIII numerical wave model to compute historical and future wave conditions under the influence of two climate scenarios. The GCMs respond to specified, time-varying concentrations of various atmospheric constituents (such as greenhouse gases) and include an interactive representation of the atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice. The two climate scenarios are derived from the Coupled Model Inter-Comparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5; World Climate Research Programme, 2013) and represent one medium-emission mitigation scenario (Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5) and one high-emissions scenario (RCP8.5). The historical time-period spans the years 1976 through 2005, whereas the two future time-periods encompass the mid (years 2026 through 2045) and end of the 21st century (years 2081 through 2099/2100). Continuous time-series of dynamically-downscaled hourly wave parameters (significant wave heights, peak wave periods, and wave directions) and three-hourly winds (wind speed and wind direction) are available for download at discrete deep-water locations along four U.S. coastal regions: ? Pacific Islands [this should be hyperlinked] ? West Coast [this should be hyperlinked] ? East Coast [this should be hyperlinked] ? Alaska Coasts [this should be hyperlinked] The data and cursory overviews of changing conditions along the coasts are summarized in (make these into links.. or have them as a box on the right-hand-side as is currently the case.. if so, then change the text here to read ?? along the coasts are summarized in the documents provided in the right-hand-side box.?) Storlazzi, C.D., Shope, J.B., Erikson, L.H., Hegermiller, C.A., and Barnard, P.L., 2015. Future wave and wind projections for United States and United States-affiliated Pacific Islands: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2015?1001, 426 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20151001. Erikson, L.H., Hegermiller, C.E., Barnard, P.L., and Storlazzi, C. 2016. Wave projections for United States mainland coasts. U.S. Geological Survey pamphlet to accompany data set, http://dx.doi.org/10.5066/F7D798GR The time-series data cursory overviews provide information on trends and variability of geophysical variables that are expected to respond to changes in global-scale forcing. The data are being used for and are made available for further evaluation of trends and variability in offshore conditions, and as boundary conditions for regiona-l and local-scale coastal hazard models. Because winds and waves are the key processes driving extreme water levels and wave-driven flooding, the data are expected to be crucial for projecting future transient sea-level extremes on coasts and for defining areas that might be vulnerable to changing wind and wave conditions.