scholarly journals Global Trends of Sea Surface Gravity Wave, Wind, and Coastal Wave Setup

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 769-785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuchun Lin ◽  
Leo Oey

AbstractAssessing trends of sea surface wave, wind, and coastal wave setup is of considerable scientific and practical importance in view of recent and projected long-term sea level rise due to global warming. Here we analyze global significant wave height (SWH) and wind data from 1993 to 2015 and a wave model to (i) calculate wave age and explain the causal, or the lack thereof, relationship between wave and wind trends; and (ii) estimate trends of coastal wave setup and its contributions to secular trends of relative sea level at coastal locations around the world. We show in-phase, increasing SWH and wind trends in regions dominated by younger waves, and decreasing SWH trends where older waves dominate and are unrelated to the local wind trends. In the central North Pacific where wave age is transitional, in-phase decreasing wave and wind trends are found over the west-northwestern region, but wave and wind trends are insignificantly correlated in the south-southeastern region; here, a reversed, upward momentum flux from wave to wind is postulated. We show that coastal wave setup depends primarily on open-ocean SWH but only weakly on wind, varying approximately like SWH/(wind speed)1/5. The wave-setup trends are shown to be increasing along many coastlines where the local relative sea level trends are also increasing: the North and Irish Seas, Mediterranean Sea, East and South Asian seas, and eastern United States, exacerbating the potential for increased floods along these populated coastlines.

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 749-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
ORSON VAN DE PLASSCHE ◽  
ALEX J. WRIGHT ◽  
BENJAMIN P. HORTON ◽  
SIMON E. ENGELHART ◽  
ANDREW C. KEMP ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha L.M. Barlow ◽  
Antony J. Long ◽  
Margot H. Saher ◽  
W. Roland Gehrels ◽  
Mark H. Garnett ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 367-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Johannessen

Paralic and shallow marine sandstones were deposited in the Danish Central Graben during Late Jurassic rifting when half-grabens were developed and the overall eustatic sea level rose. During the Kimmeridgian, an extensive plateau area consisting of the Heno Plateau and the Gertrud Plateau was situated between two highs, the Mandal High to the north, and the combined Inge and Mads Highs to the west. These highs were land areas situated on either side of the plateaus and supplied sand to the Gertrud and Heno Plateaus. Two graben areas, the Feda and Tail End Grabens, flanked the plateau area to the west and east, respectively. The regressive–transgressive succession consists of intensely bioturbated shoreface sandstones, 25–75 m thick. Two widespread unconformities (SB1, SB2) are recognised on the plateaus, forming the base of sequence 1 and sequence 2, respectively. These unconformities were created by a fall in relative sea level during which rivers may have eroded older shoreface sands and transported sediment across the Heno and Gertrud Plateaus, resulting in the accumulation of shoreface sandstones farther out in the Feda and Tail End Grabens, on the south-east Heno Plateau and in the Salt Dome Province. During subsequent transgression, fluvial sediments were reworked by high-energy shoreface processes on the Heno and Gertrud Plateaus, leaving only a lag of granules and pebbles on the marine transgressive surfaces of erosion (MTSE1, MTSE2). The sequence boundary SB1 can be traced to the south-east Heno Plateau and the Salt Dome Province, where it is marked by sharp-based shoreface sandstones. During low sea level, erosion occurred in the southern part of the Feda Graben, which formed part of the Gertrud and Heno Plateaus, and sedimentation occurred in the Norwegian part of the Feda Graben farther to the north. During subsequent transgression, the southern part of the Feda Graben began to subside, and a succession of backstepping back-barrier and shoreface sediments, 90 m thick, was deposited. In the deep Tail End and Feda Grabens and the Salt Dome Province, sequence boundary SB2 is developed as a conformity, indicating that there was not a significant fall in relative sea level in these grabens, probably as a result of high subsidence rates. Backstepping lower shoreface sandstones overlie SB2 and show a gradual fining-upwards to offshore claystones that are referred to the Farsund Formation. On the plateaus, backstepping shoreface sandstones of sequence 2 are abruptly overlain by offshore claystones, indicating a sudden deepening and associated cessation of sand supply, probably caused by drowning of the sediment source areas on the Mandal, Inge and Mads Highs. During the Volgian, the Gertrud Plateau began to subside and became a graben. During the Late Kimmeridgian – Ryazanian, a long-term relative sea-level rise resulted in deposition of a thick succession of offshore claystones forming highstand and transgressive systems tracts on the Heno Plateau, and in the Gertrud, Feda and Tail End Grabens.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Steckler ◽  
Bar Oryan ◽  
Md. Hasnat Jaman ◽  
Dhiman R. Mondal ◽  
Céline Grall ◽  
...  

<p>Deltas, the low-lying land at rivers mouths, are sensitive to the delicate balance between sea level rise, land subsidence and sedimentation. Bangladesh and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (GBD) have been highlighted as a region at risk from sea level rise, but reliable estimates of land subsidence have been limited. While early studies in the GBD suggested high rates of relative sea level rise, recent papers estimate more modest rates. Our objective is to better quantify the magnitude, spatial variability, and depth variation of compaction and subsidence in the GBD in order to better evaluate the processes controlling it and the pattern of relative sea level rise in this vulnerable region.</p><p>With support from the Bangladesh Water Development Board, we have rehabilitated previously installed GNSS and installed new GNSS co-located with Rod Surface Elevation Tables (RSET) to better understand the balance of subsidence and sedimentation in the coastal zone in SW Bangladesh, which is less affected by the active tectonic boundaries to the north and the east. The continuous GNSSs installed in 2003 and 2012 were mounted on reinforced concrete building roofs. GPS stations in the area yield subsidence rate estimates of 3-7 mm/y.  To densify the subsidence data, in early 2020 we resurveyed 48 concrete Survey of Bangladesh geodetic monuments in SW Bangladesh that were installed in 2002. Although only measured at the start and end of the period, the time span between the two measurements is ~18 years enabling us to estimate subsidence over this timespan.</p><p>Preliminary results show that about ½ the sites yielded very high subsidence rates; repeat measurements confirm the suspicion that the monuments at these sites are unstable and have undergone localized subsidence from settling or anthropogenic activity. The remaining sites show an increase in subsidence from the NW to the SE, consistent with estimates of average Holocene subsidence (Grall et al., 2018). However, rates from the campaign stations are much higher than those from continuous GNSS sites, but only slightly higher than an RSET site. We interpret that the continuous building GNSS omit very shallow compaction-related subsidence, while RSETs neglect deep subsidence. This is further reinforced by results from a compaction meter consisting of 6 wells from 20 to 300 m depth with vertical optical fiber strainmeters in each well. They show a decrease in compaction with depth. While initial results require further investigation, we highlight the importance of multiple methodologies for interpreting subsidence rates--deep, shallow, natural, anthropogenic--in vulnerable delta regions.</p>


1982 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 2232-2246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garry Quinlan ◽  
Christopher Beaumont

The post-Wisconsinan relative sea-level record from Atlantic Canada is used to reconstruct the morphology of late Wisconsinan age ice cover during its retreat from the Atlantic region. The proposed reconstruction has little or no grounded ice in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, an ice dome over the north shore of the St. Lawrence, and thin ice, often less than 1 km thick, over much of the rest of the area. A sensitivity analysis shows that the proposed reconstruction is not unique in its ability to account for the relative sea-level record but that the thickness of ice in any individual area of the reconstruction is unlikely to be in error by more than a factor of two. The exact position of the ice margin in some areas is not well constrained by the model; an example is in southeastern Newfoundland.The numerical model used to relate ice morphology to postglacial relative sea level assumes that the ice sheets are isostatically equilibrated at the glacial maximum and, therefore, that load changes associated with earlier ice-sheet growth may be ignored. This assumption is shown to be reasonable. The same rapid relaxation of the Earth that allows one to ignore the effects of glacial accumulation, however, prohibits one from recognizing the effects of large-scale ablation that may have occurred prior to the assumed glacial maximum. For this reason the proposed reconstruction may be representative of only a late stage in the ablation of much more extensive and thicker ice sheets.Surfaces of relative sea level are presented for Atlantic Canada at various times in the past. These surfaces coincide with observational data where such data exist and are felt to provide reasonable estimates of relative sea level at all other locations for at least the last 13 000 years.


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