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. 2020 Jun 10;6(24):eaaz7295.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz7295. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Projected 21st century changes in extreme wind-wave events

Alberto Meucci  1 , Ian R Young  1 , Mark Hemer  2 , Ebru Kirezci  1 , Roshanka Ranasinghe  3   4   5
Affiliations

Projected 21st century changes in extreme wind-wave events

Alberto Meucci et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

We describe an innovative approach to estimate global changes in extreme wave conditions by 2100, as a result of projected climate change. We generate a synthetic dataset from an ensemble of wave models forced by independent climate simulation winds, enhancing statistical confidence associated with projected changes in extreme wave conditions. Under two IPCC representative greenhouse gas emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5), we find that the magnitude of a 1 in 100-year significant wave height (H s ) event increases by 5 to 15% over the Southern Ocean by the end of the 21st century, compared to the 1979-2005 period. The North Atlantic shows a decrease at low to mid latitudes (≈5 to 15%) and an increase at high latitudes (≈10%). The extreme significant wave height in the North Pacific increases at high latitudes by 5 to 10%. The ensemble approach used here allows statistical confidence in projected changes of extremes.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Magnitude of the 100-year return period significant wave height Hs100[m] resulting from three different dataset EVAs.
(A) The 1979–2005 intermodel ensemble of the bias-corrected Z standardized variable highest peaks (see Materials and Methods), pooled from global wave model runs forced with seven GCM surface winds. (B) The 1985–2018 calibrated altimeter dataset using the PoT approach with exponential distribution fit. (C) The 1979–2005 peaks over 99.6th percentile threshold for the single global wave model run forced with a reference NOAA CFSR wind speed (exponential distribution fit).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Percentage change in the 100-year return period significant wave height by the end of the 21st century relative to the 1979–2005 period.
Standardized variable analysis approach is used for the intervals 1979–2005 and 2081–2100. (A) RCP4.5 mid-emission scenario. (B) RCP8.5 high-emission scenario. The regions with statistically significant changes at 5% level (see Materials and Methods; Eq. 7) are hatched.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Changes in extreme event frequency.
(A) Changes in the number of extreme events per year over the historical 90th percentile threshold between the historical dataset 1979–2005 and future projection 2081–2100 for RCP8.5. (B) As for (A) but for the historical 99.6th percentile threshold. The similar spatial variability demonstrates consistency of the results for different selected thresholds.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Percentage change in 100-year extreme value significant wave height along the global coastline between the historical dataset 1979–2005 and future projection 2081–2100 for RCP8.5.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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