scholarly journals Storm Xaver over Europe in December 2013: Overview of energy impacts and North Sea events

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 137-147
Author(s):  
Anthony James Kettle
Keyword(s):  
Wind Energy ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Coastal Erosion ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Infragravity Waves ◽  
Energy Infrastructure ◽  
The North ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Pressure Centre ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. Storm Xaver on 5–6 December 2013 was a serious winter storm in northern Europe with important impacts on societal and energy infrastructure. The storm's low pressure centre passed eastward north of Scotland, across the North Sea and southern Scandinavia, and into the Baltic region. The trajectory resulted in strong northwest winds and a cold air outbreak southward across the North Sea. The resultant convection system was associated with powerful wind gusts and freezing precipitation that impacted the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The storm caused coastal flooding that was comparable with the most serious North Sea surge events of the 20th century. The primary impact for energy meteorology was a large scale electrical power loss in the northern part of the British Isles, Sweden, Poland, and parts of Germany. Petroleum production was reduced as offshore platforms were evacuated ahead of the storm. For wind energy, a number of onshore turbines were damaged by the gust field. Other societal impacts included travel and transport interruptions, building damage, forest damage, and coastal erosion. Because of the high water levels and sea state in the North Sea, the storm was important for offshore wind energy. The wind energy research tower FINO1 sustained unexpected damage during the storm, similar to previous wave strikes during Storm Britta (2006) and Storm Tilo (2007). A closer analysis is made of the tide gauge records across the North Sea to understand the progression of the storm surge and identify high amplitude, short-period features that may be linked to unusual seiches, meteotsunamis, or infragravity waves. Similar to previous storms, there is an indication that large infragravity waves during Storm Xaver may have had an impact on North Sea transport and energy infrastructure as well as coastal erosion. The review of information from different sources permits the met-ocean conditions and resultant societal/energy impacts to be related in time and space.

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;

What can idealized storm surge simulations tell us about worst case scenarios?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elin Andrée ◽  
Jian Su ◽  
Martin Drews ◽  
Morten Andreas Dahl Larsen ◽  
Asger Bendix Hansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Wind Direction ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Sea Coast ◽  
North Sea Coast

&lt;p&gt;The potential impacts of extreme sea level events are becoming more apparent to the public and policy makers alike. As the magnitude of these events are expected to increase due to climate change, and increased coastal urbanization results in ever increasing stakes in the coastal zones, the need for risk assessments is growing too.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The physical conditions that generate extreme sea levels are highly dependent on site specific conditions, such as bathymetry, tidal regime, wind fetch and the shape of the coastline. For a low-lying country like Denmark, which consists of a peninsula and islands that partition off the semi-enclosed Baltic Sea from the North Sea, a better understanding of how the local sea level responds to wind forcing is urgently called for.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We here present a map for Denmark that shows the most efficient wind directions for generating extreme sea levels, for a total of 70 locations distributed all over the country&amp;#8217;s coastlines. The maps are produced by conducting simulations with a high resolution, 3D-ocean model, which is used for operational storm surge modelling at the Danish Meteorological Institute. We force the model with idealized wind fields that maintain a fixed wind speed and wind direction over the entire model domain. Simulations are conducted for one wind speed and one wind direction at a time, generating ensembles of a set of wind directions for a fixed wind speed, as well as a set of wind speeds for a fixed wind direction, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For each wind direction, we find that the maximum water level at a given location increases linearly with the wind speed, and the slope values show clear spatial patterns, for example distinguishing the Danish southern North Sea coast from the central or northern North Sea Coast. The slope values are highest along the southwestern North Sea coast, where the passage of North Atlantic low pressure systems over the shallow North Sea, as well as the large tidal range, result in a much larger range of variability than in the more sheltered Inner Danish Waters. However, in our simulations the large fetch of the Baltic Sea, in combination with the funneling effect of the Danish Straits, result in almost as high water levels as along the North Sea coast.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Although the wind forcing is completely synthetic with no spatial and temporal structure of a real storm, this idealized approach allows us to systematically investigate the sea level response at the boundaries of what is physically plausible. We evaluate the results from these simulations by comparison to peak water levels from a 58 year long, high resolution ocean hindcast, with promising agreement.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals An ensemble study of extreme storm surge related water levels in the North Sea in a changing climate

Ocean Science ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Sterl ◽  
H. van den Brink ◽  
H. de Vries ◽  
R. Haarsma ◽  
E. van Meijgaard
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Sea Water ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
The North ◽  
Extreme Storm ◽  
The North Sea

Abstract. The height of storm surges is extremely important for a low-lying country like The Netherlands. By law, part of the coastal defence system has to withstand a water level that on average occurs only once every 10 000 years. The question then arises whether and how climate change affects the heights of extreme storm surges. Published research points to only small changes. However, due to the limited amount of data available results are usually limited to relatively frequent extremes like the annual 99%-ile. We here report on results from a 17-member ensemble of North Sea water levels spaning the period 1950–2100. It was created by forcing a surge model of the North Sea with meteorological output from a state-of-the-art global climate model which has been driven by greenhouse gas emissions following the SRES A1b scenario. The large ensemble size enables us to calculate 10 000 year return water levels with a low statistical uncertainty. In the one model used in this study, we find no statistically significant change in the 10 000 year return values of surge heights along the Dutch during the 21st century. Also a higher sea level resulting from global warming does not impact the height of the storm surges. As a side effect of our simulations we also obtain results on the interplay between surge and tide.

scholarly journals A decision support system for assessing offshore wind energy potential in the North Sea

Energy Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 541-551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schillings ◽  
Thomas Wanderer ◽  
Lachlan Cameron ◽  
Jan Tjalling van der Wal ◽  
Jerome Jacquemin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Decision Support System ◽  
Wind Energy ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Support System ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Energy Potential ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Wind Energy Potential

Linking weather types to tense dewatering situations of the Kiel Canal (NOK)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Jensen ◽  
Jens Möller ◽  
Peter Löwe
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Water Level ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Weather Types ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Kiel Canal

&lt;p&gt;Within the &amp;#8220;Network of experts&amp;#8221; of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), the effect of climate change on infrastructure is investigated. One aspect of this project is the future dewatering situation of the Kiel Canal (&amp;#8220;Nord-Ostsee-Kanal&amp;#8221; (NOK)). The Kiel Canal is one of the world&amp;#8217;s busiest man-made waterways navigable by seagoing ships. It connects the North Sea to the Baltic Sea and can save the ships hundreds of kilometers of distance. With a total annual sum of transferred cargo of up to 100 million tons it is an economically very important transportation way. Additionally to the transportation of cargo, the canal is also used to discharge water from smaller rivers as well as drainage of a catchments area of about 1500 km&amp;#178;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The canal can only operate in a certain water level range. If its water level exceeds the maximum level, the water must be drained into the sea. In 90% of the time, the water is drained into the North Sea during time windows with low tide. If the water level outside of the canal is too high, drainage is not possible and the canal traffic has to be reduced or, in extreme cases, shut down. Due to the expected sea level rise, the potential time windows for dewatering are decreasing in the future. With a decrease in operational hours, there will be substantial economic losses as well as an increase in traffic around Denmark.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;To get a better understanding of what causes tense dewatering situations other than sea level rise a linkage between high water levels on the outside of the canal and weather types is made. Weather types describe large-scale circulation patterns and can therefore give an estimate on tracks of low-pressure systems as well as the prevailing winds, which can explain surges and water levels at the coast. This analysis is conducted for one weather type classification method based solely on sea level pressure fields. Weather types derived from regionally coupled climate models as well as reanalyses are investigated.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals THE DUTCH PROGRAM OF INVESTIGATIONS ON STORM SURGES IN THE NORTH SEA

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
J. B. Schijf
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Wind Effects ◽  
Shallow Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Western Germany ◽  
North Western

The North Sea is a shallow sea and therefore it is very sensitive to wind effects. As a result the water levels along the coasts are, in addition to the tidal oscillations subject to a considerable wind setup and exceptionally severe gales throughout history have been accompanied by inundations of the low-lying regions bordering the North Sea, in particular its southern part. No stretch of coast has suffered more than that belonging to the Netherlands and the adjacent parts of Belgium and North Western Germany. Several factors combine to bestow on us this doubtful privilege.

Model-based hydrodynamic leveling; a power full tool to enhance the quality of the geodetic networks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosra Afrasteh ◽  
Cornelis Slobbe ◽  
Martin Verlaan ◽  
Martina Sacher ◽  
Roland Klees
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Offshore Platforms ◽  
Tide Gauges ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Model Based ◽  
The North ◽  
Height System ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Impact

&lt;p&gt;Model-based hydrodynamic leveling is an efficient and flexible alternative method to connect islands and offshore tide gauges with the height system on land. The method uses a regional, high-resolution hydrodynamic model that provides total water levels. From the model, we obtain the differences in mean water level (MWL) between tide gauges at the mainland and at the islands or offshore platforms, respectively. Adding them to the MWL relative to the national height system at the mainland&amp;#8217;s tide gauges realizes a connection of the island and offshore platforms with the height system on the mainland. Usually, the geodetic leveling networks are based on spirit leveling. So, as we can not make the direct connections between coastal countries, due to the inability of the spirit leveling method to cross the water bodies, they are weak in these regions. In this study, we assessed the impact of using model-based hydrodynamic leveling connections among the North Sea countries on the quality at which the European Vertical Reference System can be realized. In doing so, we combined the model-based hydrodynamic leveling data with synthetic geopotential differences among the height markers of the Unified European Leveling Network (UELN) used to realize the European Vertical Reference Frame 2019. The uncertainties of the latter data set were provided by the BKG. The impact is assessed in terms of both precision and reliability. We will show that adding model-based hydrodynamic leveling connections lowers the standard deviations of the estimated heights in the North Sea countries significantly. In terms of reliability, no significant improvements are observed.&lt;/p&gt;

Transport and Water Quality Modelling in the Southern North Sea in Relation to Coastal Pollution Research and Control

1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 245-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. van Pagee ◽  
H. Gerritsen ◽  
W P. M. de Ruijter
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Metals ◽  
Water Quality ◽  
Coastal Zone ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Coastal Pollution ◽  
The North ◽  
Pollution Research ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
And Control

Mathematical modelling techniques are used to quantify the transport in the southern part of the North Sea of pollutants originating from various inputs. Special attention was given to the anthropogenic increase in local concentrations of nutrients (N, P) and heavy metals (Cd, Hg, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr) and their potential impact on marine organisms. A depth-averaged hydrodynamic model is used to calculate tidal and wind driven velocities and water levels. By averaging, residual flows are calculated, forming the basis for advective transports in a water quality model. Dispersive transports are derived from a comparison of simulated and observed salinity distributions. Water mass distributions and age functions for various inflowing water types are determined with the model. Transports of nutrients and heavy metals in the southern part of the North Sea are calculated using annual pollution inputs for 1980. Although interactions with bottom sediments are not considered, the calculated and measured concentrations show good similarities. The water quality in the Dutch coastal zone and German Bight area is shown to be highly determined by local pollution loads from the rivers Rhine, Weser and Elbe respectively. Comparison of simulated concentrations for 1980 with those resulting from simulations with estimated natural river inputs, shows that more than 50% of nutrients and heavy metal concentrations originate from human activities in large coastal zone areas. From toxicological information and standards, it is concluded that Cd, Hg and Cu are substances that need special attention in pollution research and control for the Dutch coastal waters.

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