No abstract

Venice has long suffered the effects of rising sea levels. The last two stormy seasons brought a series of events that peaked in the great flood of November 2019. Here, we analyze that November storm, showing (1) how different factors, by themselves unexceptional, gave rise to one of the worst floods in Venice's history, and (2) that the characteristics of this event made the storm difficult to forecast accurately. We stress the need to take into account probabilistic information available from ensemble forecasts, and discuss this within the framework of Venice's present situation. At the same time, using the 2019 Venice flooding as an example that may apply to many similar coastal locations elsewhere, we look at the future, pointing out that flooding problems can only worsen in a rapidly changing natural world.

No abstract

The marginal ice zone is the dynamic interface between the open ocean and consolidated inner pack ice. Surface gravity waves regulate marginal ice zone extent and properties, and, hence, atmosphere-ocean fluxes and ice advance/retreat. Over the past decade, seminal experimental campaigns have generated much needed measurements of wave evolution in the marginal ice zone, which, notwithstanding the prominent knowledge gaps that remain, are underpinning major advances in understanding the region’s role in the climate system. Here, we report three-dimensional imaging of waves from a moving vessel and simultaneous imaging of floe sizes, with the potential to enhance the marginal ice zone database substantially. The images give the direction–frequency wave spectrum, which we combine with concurrent measurements of wind speeds and reanalysis products to reveal the complex multi-component wind-plus-swell nature of a cyclone-driven wave field, and quantify evolution of large-amplitude waves in sea ice.