No Arabic abstract
Low-lying coastal cities across the world are vulnerable to the combined impact of rainfall and storm tide. However, existing approaches lack the ability to model the combined effect of these flood mechanisms. Thus, to increase flood resilience, modeling techniques to improve understanding and prediction of the combined effect of these flood hazards are critical. To address this need, this study presents a modeling system for assessing the combined flood risk to coastal cities under changing climate conditions that leverages ocean modeling with land surface modeling capable of resolving urban drainage infrastructure within the city. The modeling approach is demonstrated in quantifying the future impact on transportation infrastructure within Norfolk, Virginia USA. A series of combined storms events are modeled for current (2020) and projected future (2070) climate conditions. Results show that pluvial flooding causes a larger interruption to the transportation network compared to tidal flooding under current climate conditions. By 2070, however, tidal flooding will be the dominant flooding mechanism with even nuisance flooding expected to happen daily due to SLR. In 2070, nuisance flooding is expected to cause a 4.6% total link close time (TLC), which is more than two times that of a 50-year storm surge (1.8% TLC) in 2020. The coupled model was compared with a widely used but physically simplistic bathtub method to assess the difference resulting from the more complex modeling presented. Results show that the bathtub method overestimated the flooded area near the shoreline by 9.5% and 3.1% for a 10-year storm surge event in 2020 and 2070, respectively, but underestimated flooded area in the inland region by 9.0% and 4.0% for the same events. The findings demonstrate the benefit of sophisticated modeling methods in climate adaptive planning and policy in coastal communities.
This study investigates the trend in Rainfall Onset Dates (ROD), Rainfall Cessation Dates (RCD), Length of Growing Seasons (LGS) and Rainfall Amount at Onset of Rainfall (RAO) using linear regression, Mann-Kendall, Sen Slope and Hurst Exponent for four locations in tropical Nigeria and the development of a Fourier based model for ROD and RCD. Daily data was obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency for thirty-four (34) years (1979 - 2013). ROD and RCD were computed using the method of cumulative percentage mean rainfall values. Maiduguri, Gusau and Ikom showed positive trends in ROD and RCD while Ibadan exhibited negative trends in the two parameters. Anti-persistence was observed in ROD, RCD and LGS for three locations (Maiduguri, Gusau and Ibadan). A Fourier based model with seven (7) coefficients was developed to model ROD and RCD for all the locations. The model developed performed very well in all locations with the best performance obtained in Gusau and Ibadan for ROD and RCD respectively. The effects of climate change on agricultural output for the four (4) locations under consideration were highlighted and adaption techniques suggested for mitigating the impact on agricultural output and livelihood of citizens in the areas.
A high-resolution wave climate projection for the northwestern Atlantic Ocean has been conducted to help assess possible regional impacts due to global climate change. The spectral wave model NOAA WAVEWATCH III is utilized with three coupled (two-way) grids to resolve the northwestern Atlantic and coastal southern and eastern USA at approximately 21 km and 7 km respectively, and covers the periods 1979--2003 (historic) and 2075--2099 (future). Hourly wind field forcings are provided by a high-resolution AGCM (MRI-AGCM 3.2S; 21 km) and allow for better modeling of large storm events (important for extreme event statistics). Climatological (25-year) comparisons between future and historical periods indicate significant wave heights will decrease in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean (-5.7 %) and Gulf of Mexico (-4.7 %) but increase in the Caribbean Sea (2.4 %). Comparisons also indicate that large changes in mean wave direction will occur in the Gulf of Mexico (5.0{deg}), with the largest occurring west of the Florida peninsula (over 15{deg}).
The novel Coronavirus COVID-19 spreading rapidly throughout the world was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. One month into the COVID-19 pandemic, this white paper looks at the initial impacts COVID-19 has had on transportation systems in the metropolitan area of New York, which has become the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus.
The end-Permian mass extinction is the most severe known from the fossil record. The most likely cause is massive volcanic activity associated with the formation of the Permo-Triassic Siberian flood basalts. A proposed mechanism for extinction due to this volcanic activity is depletion of stratospheric ozone, leading to increased penetration of biologically damaging Solar ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation to Earths surface. Previous work has modeled the atmospheric chemistry effects of volcanic emission at the end-Permian. Here we use those results as input for detailed radiative transfer simulations to investigate changes in surface-level Solar irradiance in the ultraviolet-B, ultraviolet-A and photosynthetically available (visible light) wave bands. We then evaluate the potential biological effects using biological weighting functions. In addition to changes in ozone column density we also include gaseous sulfur dioxide (SO2) and sulfate aerosols. Ours is the first such study to include these factors and we find they have a significant impact on transmission of Solar radiation through the atmosphere. Inclusion of SO2 and aerosols greatly reduces the transmission of radiation across the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, with subsequent reduction in biological impacts by UVB. We conclude that claims of a UVB mechanism for this extinction are likely overstated.
Drought poses a significant threat to the delicate economies in subsaharan Africa. This study investigates the influence of large scale ocean oscillation on drought in West Africa. Standardized Precipitation Index for the region was computed using monthly precipitation data from the Climate Research Unit during the period 1961 -1990. The impact of three ocean oscillation indices - Southern Ocean Index (SOI), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on drought over West Africa was investigated using linear correlation, co-integration test, mutual information and nonlinear synchronization methods. SOI showed predominantly positive correlation with drought over the region while PDO and NAO showed negative correlation. This was confirmed by the co-integration tests. The nonlinear test revealed more complex relationship between the indices and drought. PDO has lesser influence or contribute less to the drought in the coastal region compared to the Sahel region of West Africa.