Influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding

Sanne Muis; J.C.J.H. Aerts; P.J. Ward; G.G.N. Guimaraes Nobre; I.D. Haigh

doi:10.1029/2018EF000909

Influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding

Sanne Muis^*, J.C.J.H. Aerts, P.J. Ward, G.G.N. Guimaraes Nobre, I.D. Haigh

^*Corresponding author for this work

Water and Climate Risk

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Anomalous atmosphere-ocean conditions in the tropical Pacific associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drive interannual variations in mean and extreme sea levels. Climate change may lead to more frequent extreme ENSO events in the future. Therefore, it is important to enhance our understanding of ENSO's influence on coastal flood impacts. We assessed ENSO's influence on extreme sea levels using a global reanalysis of tides and storm surges. This allows for a full coverage of the global coastline from 1979 to 2014. A mean sea level component is added to account for steric effects. This results in a substantial improvement in the representation of the seasonal and interannual variability. Our results show significant correlations across the Pacific between ENSO and extreme sea levels (expressed as 95th annual percentiles), which is consistent with previous studies based on tide gauge observations. Average anomalies in the annual percentiles over El Niño years compared to neutral years show similar patterns. When examining total sea levels, results are largely statistically insignificant. This is because in many regions large tidal variability dominates over the other components. Combining sea levels with an inundation and impact model shows that ENSO has a significant but small effect on the number of people potentially exposed to flooding at the globally aggregated scale. Our results demonstrate that a model-based approach allows for an assessment of the influence of ENSO on coastal flood impacts and could be used to assess impacts of future changes in ENSO.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1311-1322
Number of pages	12
Journal	Earth's Future
Volume	6
Issue number	9
Early online date	6 Sept 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000909
Publication status	Published - Sept 2018

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European research project RISES-AM (grant agreement 603396) and the Aqueduct Global Flood Analyzer project, via subsidy 5000002722 from the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. The latter project is convened by the World Resources Institute. S. M. and J. C. J. H. A. received additional funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VICI Grant (grant 453-14-006). P. J. W. received additional funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VIDI grant (grant 016-161-324). G. G. N. received funding from the Horizon 2020 Framework programme through the project IMPREX (grant 641811). The data used are listed in the references. The Ishii data set used to calculate the steric sea levels can be downloaded at http:// amaterasu.ees.hokudai.ac.jp/~ism/pub/ ProjD/v6.13/. The EN data set 4.1.1 can be downloaded at http://www.metof-fice.gov.uk/hadobs/en4/download-en4-1-1.html. Daily maxima from the GTSR data set are available at https://data.4tu. nl/repository/uuid:29614991-345e-4ffd-be22-2930912a2798. Monthly mean steric sea levels are available at https:// data.4tu.nl/repository/uuid:51b743a1-1c24-4796-8e07-89c5e67a50cf. We thank SURFsara (www.surfsara.nl) for the support in using the Lisa Computer Cluster. The authors would like to acknowledge Francisco Mir Calafat for providing the algorithm to calculate the steric sea levels. Many thanks to Ted Veldkamp, Thomas Wahl, and the anonymous reviewers for the valuable suggestions. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European research project RISES-AM (grant agreement 603396) and the Aqueduct Global Flood Analyzer project, via subsidy 5000002722 from the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. The latter project is convened by the World Resources Institute. S.?M. and J.?C.?J.?H.?A. received additional funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VICI Grant (grant 453-14-006). P.?J.?W. received additional funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the form of a VIDI grant (grant 016-161-324). G.?G.?N. received funding from the Horizon 2020 Framework programme through the project IMPREX (grant 641811). The data used are listed in the references. The Ishii data set used to calculate the steric sea levels can be downloaded at http://amaterasu.ees.hokudai.ac.jp/~ism/pub/ProjD/v6.13/. The EN data set 4.1.1 can be downloaded at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/en4/download-en4-1-1.html. Daily maxima from the GTSR data set are available at https://data.4tu.nl/repository/uuid:29614991-345e-4ffd-be22-2930912a2798. Monthly mean steric sea levels are available at https://data.4tu.nl/repository/uuid:51b743a1-1c24-4796-8e07-89c5e67a50cf. We thank SURFsara (www.surfsara.nl) for the support in using the Lisa Computer Cluster. The authors would like to acknowledge Francisco Mir Calafat for providing the algorithm to calculate the steric sea levels. Many thanks to Ted Veldkamp, Thomas Wahl, and the anonymous reviewers for the valuable suggestions.

Funders	Funder number
Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme	603396, 641811
World Resources Institute
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	453-14-006, 016-161-324

Keywords

climate variability
coastal flooding
ENSO
extreme sea levels
flood risk
global scale

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Cite this

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title = "Influence of El Ni{\~n}o-Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding",

abstract = "Anomalous atmosphere-ocean conditions in the tropical Pacific associated with the El Ni{\~n}o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drive interannual variations in mean and extreme sea levels. Climate change may lead to more frequent extreme ENSO events in the future. Therefore, it is important to enhance our understanding of ENSO's influence on coastal flood impacts. We assessed ENSO's influence on extreme sea levels using a global reanalysis of tides and storm surges. This allows for a full coverage of the global coastline from 1979 to 2014. A mean sea level component is added to account for steric effects. This results in a substantial improvement in the representation of the seasonal and interannual variability. Our results show significant correlations across the Pacific between ENSO and extreme sea levels (expressed as 95th annual percentiles), which is consistent with previous studies based on tide gauge observations. Average anomalies in the annual percentiles over El Ni{\~n}o years compared to neutral years show similar patterns. When examining total sea levels, results are largely statistically insignificant. This is because in many regions large tidal variability dominates over the other components. Combining sea levels with an inundation and impact model shows that ENSO has a significant but small effect on the number of people potentially exposed to flooding at the globally aggregated scale. Our results demonstrate that a model-based approach allows for an assessment of the influence of ENSO on coastal flood impacts and could be used to assess impacts of future changes in ENSO.",

keywords = "climate variability, coastal flooding, ENSO, extreme sea levels, flood risk, global scale",

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AU - Muis, Sanne

AU - Aerts, J.C.J.H.

AU - Ward, P.J.

AU - Guimaraes Nobre, G.G.N.

AU - Haigh, I.D.

PY - 2018/9

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N2 - Anomalous atmosphere-ocean conditions in the tropical Pacific associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drive interannual variations in mean and extreme sea levels. Climate change may lead to more frequent extreme ENSO events in the future. Therefore, it is important to enhance our understanding of ENSO's influence on coastal flood impacts. We assessed ENSO's influence on extreme sea levels using a global reanalysis of tides and storm surges. This allows for a full coverage of the global coastline from 1979 to 2014. A mean sea level component is added to account for steric effects. This results in a substantial improvement in the representation of the seasonal and interannual variability. Our results show significant correlations across the Pacific between ENSO and extreme sea levels (expressed as 95th annual percentiles), which is consistent with previous studies based on tide gauge observations. Average anomalies in the annual percentiles over El Niño years compared to neutral years show similar patterns. When examining total sea levels, results are largely statistically insignificant. This is because in many regions large tidal variability dominates over the other components. Combining sea levels with an inundation and impact model shows that ENSO has a significant but small effect on the number of people potentially exposed to flooding at the globally aggregated scale. Our results demonstrate that a model-based approach allows for an assessment of the influence of ENSO on coastal flood impacts and could be used to assess impacts of future changes in ENSO.

AB - Anomalous atmosphere-ocean conditions in the tropical Pacific associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drive interannual variations in mean and extreme sea levels. Climate change may lead to more frequent extreme ENSO events in the future. Therefore, it is important to enhance our understanding of ENSO's influence on coastal flood impacts. We assessed ENSO's influence on extreme sea levels using a global reanalysis of tides and storm surges. This allows for a full coverage of the global coastline from 1979 to 2014. A mean sea level component is added to account for steric effects. This results in a substantial improvement in the representation of the seasonal and interannual variability. Our results show significant correlations across the Pacific between ENSO and extreme sea levels (expressed as 95th annual percentiles), which is consistent with previous studies based on tide gauge observations. Average anomalies in the annual percentiles over El Niño years compared to neutral years show similar patterns. When examining total sea levels, results are largely statistically insignificant. This is because in many regions large tidal variability dominates over the other components. Combining sea levels with an inundation and impact model shows that ENSO has a significant but small effect on the number of people potentially exposed to flooding at the globally aggregated scale. Our results demonstrate that a model-based approach allows for an assessment of the influence of ENSO on coastal flood impacts and could be used to assess impacts of future changes in ENSO.

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Influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Time-series of monthly mean steric sea levels

Cite this

Influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Global Coastal Flooding

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Persistent URL (handle)

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Datasets

Time-series of monthly mean steric sea levels

Cite this