scholarly journals A NOVEL HIGH-RESOLUTION STORM SURGE FORECAST FOR THE GERMAN BIGHT

2018 ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Sebastian Niehüser ◽  
Sönke Dangendorf ◽  
Arne Arns ◽  
Jürgen Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Weather Forecast ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Numerical Weather Forecast ◽  
Model Output Statistics

Storm surges are one of the most dangerous natural hazards in coastal areas and have the ability to cause great damages including fatalities. To be prepared when another storm surge hits the coast, reliable storm surge forecasts are indispensable. Storm surge warnings are routinely provided for selected tide gauge locations along a coastline through state-of-the-art forecast systems. In Germany, the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) (in cooperation with the German Weather Service (DWD)) have the responsibility for storm surge forecasts and warnings along the German North and Baltic Sea coastlines. The operational system in place for the North Sea consists of numerical weather forecast systems, a surge model and model output statistics. It provides accurate high frequency water level forecasts up to six days ahead at selected tide gauge sites (Müller-Navarra and Knüpfer, 2010), but not for the coastline in between. Spatial forecasts are, however, currently not available for two reasons: first, the shallow coast with complex morphological structures leads to strong non-linearities between individual sites hampering simple interpolation schemes (Arns et al. 2015). Second, tidal predictions are limited to tide gauge locations, which do not fall dry during low tide, since the traditional estimation of tidal coefficients requires complete time series covering both low and high waters.

scholarly journals The North Sea surge of 31 October–1 November 2006 during Storm Britta

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 273-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony James Kettle
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Tide Gauge Records ◽  
The North ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Sea Storm

Abstract. Offshore energy infrastructure, including the petroleum and wind energy sectors, are susceptible to damage and interruption by extreme meteorological events. In northwest Europe and especially the North Sea, these extreme meteorological events are mostly associated with severe storms in the autumn and winter seasons. In the North Sea, storm surges have an impact on the offshore energy sector mainly from the flooding of port facilities and from strong ocean currents causing extra structural loading and bottom scouring. Storm Britta on 31 October–1 November 2006 was an important North Sea storm with a high surge along the coast of the Netherlands and Germany and a significant number of high wave reports. The paper presents an analysis of the national tide gauge records of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark to spectrally isolate and reconstruct time series components corresponding to the storm surge, semi-diurnal tide, and short period contribution. The semi-diurnal tides and storm surge during Storm Britta are tracked counter-clockwise around the North Sea from Scotland to northern Denmark. The storm surge was remarkable for its pronounced peak in the coastal area between the Netherlands and Germany with no precedent in the ∼100 year measurement record. The short period component of the tide gauge records show large oscillations during the height of the storm that may correspond with reports of unusually high waves at nearby coastal locations.

scholarly journals Storm Tilo over Europe in November 2007: storm surge and impacts on societal and energy infrastructure

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 187-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony James Kettle
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Winter Storms ◽  
Energy Infrastructure ◽  
The North ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Pressure Centre ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. Storm Tilo on 8–9 November 2007 ranks among the serious winter storms in northern Europe over the past 30 years. Its low pressure centre passed across the northern North Sea, and this led to a cold air outbreak in northwest Europe. Strong north winds across the North Sea contributed to a high storm surge that was serious for coastal regions in eastern England, the Netherlands and Germany. Storm winds and unusually high waves caused shipping accidents and damage to some offshore energy infrastructure. This report presents an outline of the met-ocean conditions and a short overview of storm impacts on societal and energy infrastructure. The progress of the storm surge around the North Sea is analysed using data from the national tide gauge networks. A spectral analysis of the water level data is used to isolate the long period storm surge and short period oscillations (i.e., <4.8 h) from the tidal signal. The calculated skew surge is compared with literature reports for this storm and also with another serious North Sea storm from 31 October–1 November 2006 (Storm Britta). The short period oscillations are compared with the platform and shipping incident reports for the 2 d storm period. The results support previous reports of unusual wave and water level dynamics during some severe regional winter storms.

Storm Xaver over Europe in December 2013 and its energy meteorological impacts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Kettle
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Energy Infrastructure ◽  
The North ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Uk

&lt;p&gt;Storm Xaver impacted the northern Europe on 5-6 December 2013. &amp;#160;It developed southeast of Greenland and passed north of Scotland and across southern Norway on a trajectory that led to a cold air outbreak across the North Sea and intense convection activity in northern Europe.&amp;#160; Strong sustained north winds led to a high storm surge that impacted all countries bordering the North Sea. &amp;#160;Storm Xaver was a century scale event with certain locations around the North Sea reporting their highest ever water levels since the start of modern records.&amp;#160; Media reports from the time of the storm chronicle the scale of the disruptions, including many cancelled flights, interrupted rail networks, closed bridges and roads, coastal building collapses, and power blackouts across northern Europe. &amp;#160;Much of this was due to the strong winds, but coastal storm surge flooding was important in the UK, and it led to interrupted port operations around the North Sea.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The storm was important for energy infrastructure and particularly for wind energy infrastructure.&amp;#160; In the northern North Sea, petroleum platforms were evacuated and operations closed ahead of the storm as a precautionary measure.&amp;#160; A number of onshore wind turbines were badly damaged by high winds and lightning strikes in the UK and Germany.&amp;#160; Over the North Sea, wind speeds exceeded the turbine shutdown threshold of 25 m/s for an extended period of time, with economic impacts from the loss of power generation.&amp;#160;&amp;#160; In the German Bight, the FINO1 offshore wind energy research platform was damaged at the 15 m level by large waves. &amp;#160;This was the third report of storm damage to this platform after Storm Britta in 2006 and Storm Tilo in 2007. &amp;#160;Researchers have highlighted the need to reassess&amp;#160; the design criteria for offshore wind turbines based on these kinds of extreme meteorological events. &amp;#160;For the offshore wind industry, an important element of energy meteorology is to characterize both the evolving wind and wave fields during severe storms as both elements contribute to turbine loads and potential damage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The present conference contribution presents a literature review of the major events during Storm Xaver and impacts on energy infrastructure.&amp;#160; Tide gauge records are reanalyzed to trace the progress of the storm surge wave around the North Sea.&amp;#160; A spectral analysis is used to separate the long period storm surge component, diurnal/semidiurnal tide, and short period components in the original water level record. &amp;#160;The short period component of the tide gauge record is important as it may be linked with infragravity waves that have been implicated in certain cases of offshore infrastructure damage in addition to coastal erosion. &amp;#160;Discussion is made of offshore wave records during the storm.&amp;#160; Storm Xaver is compared with two damaging offshore storms in 2006 and 2007.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Nonlinear chaotic model for predicting storm surges

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 405-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Siek ◽  
D. P. Solomatine
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Neural Network Models ◽  
The North ◽  
Chaotic Model ◽  
Model Predictions ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Reconstructed Phase Space ◽  
Prediction Techniques

Abstract. This paper addresses the use of the methods of nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory for building a predictive chaotic model from time series. The chaotic model predictions are made by the adaptive local models based on the dynamical neighbors found in the reconstructed phase space of the observables. We implemented the univariate and multivariate chaotic models with direct and multi-steps prediction techniques and optimized these models using an exhaustive search method. The built models were tested for predicting storm surge dynamics for different stormy conditions in the North Sea, and are compared to neural network models. The results show that the chaotic models can generally provide reliable and accurate short-term storm surge predictions.

scholarly journals North Sea Storminess from a Novel Storm Surge Record since AD 1843*

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (10) ◽  
pp. 3582-3595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sönke Dangendorf ◽  
Sylvin Müller-Navarra ◽  
Jürgen Jensen ◽  
Frederik Schenk ◽  
Thomas Wahl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Decadal Variability ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Circulation Index ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract The detection of potential long-term changes in historical storm statistics and storm surges plays a vitally important role for protecting coastal communities. In the absence of long homogeneous wind records, the authors present a novel, independent, and homogeneous storm surge record based on water level observations in the North Sea since 1843. Storm surges are characterized by considerable interannual-to-decadal variability linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Time periods of increased storm surge levels prevailed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries without any evidence for significant long-term trends. This contradicts with recent findings based on reanalysis data, which suggest increasing storminess in the region since the late nineteenth century. The authors compare the wind and pressure fields from the Twentieth-Century Reanalysis (20CRv2) with the storm surge record by applying state-of-the-art empirical wind surge formulas. The comparison reveals that the reanalysis is a valuable tool that leads to good results over the past 100 yr; previously the statistical relationship fails, leaving significantly lower values in the upper percentiles of the predicted surge time series. These low values lead to significant upward trends over the entire investigation period, which are in turn supported by neither the storm surge record nor an independent circulation index based on homogeneous pressure readings. The authors therefore suggest that these differences are related to higher uncertainties in the earlier years of the 20CRv2 over the North Sea region.

scholarly journals STORM SURGE PREDICTION IN TIDAL RIVERS: A NEW CONCEPTION

1978 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Winfried Siefert
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
High Tide ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Tidal Dynamics ◽  
The North ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Tidal Rivers ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Warning Services

The heights of extreme storm surges in the North Sea rise up to U or 5 m above mean high tide. Warning services are established along the coast, mainly based on empirical connections between weather and tide data. A lot of wrong announcements are given especially for places up the tidal rivers. This can become disasterous for a lot of modern, highly sensitive harbour facilities. Thus storm surges are the famous plagues of the southern North Sea coast. Moreover, the "ten plagues of Germany" occurred during the last 16 years. So recently a new conception for storm surge prediction in tidal rivers was developed - with the result of a lot of new understandings of tidal dynamics in rivers (SIEFERT, 1968). We investigated about 130 storm surges, hindcasting all of them and forecasting about 20 of them, and analysed their behaviour in tidal rivers. Now we are able to forecast the upstream heights and even the shape of the surge curve in the Elbe with an accuracy of ± 2 dm, ' 6 hours in advance.

scholarly journals ARTIFICIAL ROUGHNESS IN PHYSICAL MODELS OF ESTUARIES FOR STORM SURGE INVESTIGATIONS

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (17) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
D. Berndt ◽  
E. Giese ◽  
H. Schwarze ◽  
H.J. Vollmers
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Tidal Range ◽  
The North ◽  
Physical Model Tests ◽  
German Coast ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Surge Protection ◽  
Autumn And Winter

One of the characteristics of the North Sea between the British Isles, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark is the occurrence of heave storm surges especially in autumn and winter with heights of about 4 m above spring highwater. Coastal areas and especially the estuaries of the tidal rivers are hit by these storm surge events. The mean tidal range at the German coast comes to about 3 m with relatively low daily and semimonthly inequalities of less than 0.5m. Within the framework of long-term developments of the navigation channels of the estuaries as well as of the storm surge protection works, physical model tests had to be carried out in order to predict the influences of such measures on the storm surge heights to be expected.

scholarly journals Using satellite altimetry and tide gauges for storm surge warning

2015 ◽  
Vol 365 ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
O. B. Andersen ◽  
Y. Cheng ◽  
X. Deng ◽  
M. Steward ◽  
Z. Gharineiat
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
High Water ◽  
Tide Gauges ◽  
Temporal Sampling ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. The combination of the coarse temporal sampling by satellite altimeters in the deep ocean with the high temporal sampling at sparsely located tide gauges along the coast has been used to improve the forecast of high water for the North Sea along the Danish Coast and for the northeast coast of Australia. For both locations we have tried to investigate the possibilities and limitations of the use of satellite altimetry to capture high frequency signals (surges) using data from the past 20 years. The two regions are chosen to represent extra-tropical and tropical storm surge conditions. We have selected several representative high water events on the two continents based on tide gauge recordings and investigated the capability of satellite altimetry to capture these events in the sea surface height data. Due to the lack of recent surges in the North Sea we focused on general high water level and found that in the presence of two or more satellites we could capture more than 90% of the high water sea level events. In the Great Barrier Reef section of the northeast Australian coast, we have investigated several large tropical cyclones; one of these being Cyclone Larry, which hit the Queensland coast in March 2006 and caused both loss of lives as well as huge devastation. Here we demonstrate the importance of integrating tide gauges with satellite altimetry for forecasting high water at the city of Townsville in northeast Australia.

The Environmental Effects of Flood Control in the Yare Basin

1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 477-484
Author(s):  
H L Wakeling
Keyword(s):  
Flood Control ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Flood Prevention ◽  
Scenic Beauty ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Justification ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Improved Pasture

The paper reviews various methods of flood control in the lower Yare Basin which has been subject to serious flooding caused by storm surges in the North Sea and by fluvial floods. This area is known as the Broads and is an area of scenic beauty, includes many sites of scientific interest and is a popular tourist area. The effects of the different flood control options on the environment are discussed. The primary economic justification for flood prevention was found to arise from the conversion of poor quality marsh grazing land to arable or improved pasture once the risk of saline flooding was removed. The consequences of this change in land use on the flora and fauna have aroused much concern among environmentalists.

Storm surges in the North Sea during the winter 1953-4

1956 ◽  
Vol 235 (1201) ◽  
pp. 260-274 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
The North ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Sea Ports ◽  
Phase Angles

Records of sea level for several North Sea ports for the winter of 1953-4 have been in vestigated. They were split into 14-day intervals, and each 14-day record was Fourieranalyzed to determine if any non-astronomical periods were present. There was evidence of some activity between 40 and 50 h period, and a determination of the phase angles at different ports showed that the activity could be due to a disturbance travelling southwards from the north of the North Sea. The disturbance was partly reflected somewhere near the line from Lowestoft to Flushing, so that one part returned past Flushing and Esbjerg towards Bergen while the other part travelled towards Dover, and there was evidence of its existence on the sea-current records taken near St Margaret's Bay. These results were confirmed by subtracting the predicted astronomical tidal levels from the observed values of sea level and cross-correlating the residuals so obtained for each port with those found at Lowestoft. The residuals at Lowestoft and Aberdeen were compared with the meteorological conditions, and it was found that, although they could be attributed to a large extent to conditions within the North Sea, there was an additional effect due to a travelling surge which was of the same order of magnitude at both Lowestoft and Aberdeen and which was closely related to the rate of change with time of the atmospheric pressure difference between Wick and Bergen.

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