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International audienc

International audienceAs sea-level rises, the frequency of coastal marine flooding events is changing. For accurate assessments, several other factors must be considered as well, such as the variability of sea-level rise and storm surge patterns. Here, a global sensitivity analysis is used to provide quantitative insight into the relative importance of contributing uncertainties over the coming decades. The method is applied on an urban low-lying coastal site located in the north-western Mediterranean, where the yearly probability of damaging flooding could grow drastically after 2050 if sea-level rise follows IPCC projections. Storm surge propagation processes, then sea-level variability, and, later, global sea-level rise scenarios become successively important source of uncertainties over the 21st century. This defines research priorities that depend on the target period of interest. On the long term, scenarios RCP 6.0 and 8.0 challenge local capacities of adaptation for the considered site

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The characterisation of past coastal flood events is crucial for risk prevention. However, it is limited by the partial nature of historical information on flood events and the lack or limited quality of past hydro-meteorological data. In addition coastal flood processes are complex, driven by many hydrometeorological processes, making mechanisms and probability analysis challenging. Here, we tackle these issues by joining historical, statistical and modelling approaches. We focus on a macrotidal site (Gâvres, France) subject to overtopping and investigate the 1900-2010 period. We build a continuous hydro-meteorological database and a damage event database using archives, newspapers, maps and aerial photographies. Using together these historic information, hindcasts and hydrodynamic models, we identify 9 flood events, among which 5 are significant flood

Climate change impacts on wave conditions can increase the risk of offshore and coastal hazards. The present paper investigates wave climate multidecadal trends and interannual variability in the Bay of Biscay during the past decades (1958–2001). Wave fields are computed with a wave modeling system based on the WAVEWATCH III code and forced by 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-40) wind fields. It provides both an extended spatiotemporal domain and a refined spatial resolution over the Bay of Biscay. The validation of the wave model is based on 11 buoys, allowing for the use of computed wave fields in the analysis of mean and extreme wave height trends and variability. Wave height, period, and direction are examined for a large array of wave conditions (by seasons, high percentiles of wave heights, different periods). Several trends for recent periods are identified, notably an increase of summer significant wave height, a southerly shift of autumn extreme wave direction, and a northerly shift of spring extreme wave direction. Wave fields exhibit high interannual variability, with a normalized standard deviation of seasonal wave height greater than 15% in wintertime. The relationship with Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns is investigated at regional scale, especially along the coast. It highlights a strong correlation between local wave conditions and the North Atlantic Oscillation and the east Atlantic pattern indices. This relationship is further investigated at the local scale with a new method based on bivariate diagrams, allowing the identification of the type of waves (swell, storm, intermediate waves) impacted. These results are discussed in terms of comparison with previous studies and coastal risk implications.

[1] In June 2007 an intense 5 day field experiment was carried out at the mesotidalmacrotidal wave-dominated Biscarrosse Beach on a well-developed bar and rip morphology. Previous analysis of the field data elucidated the main characteristics of a tide-modulated and strongly evolving rip current driven by low-to high-energy shore-normal waves. Here we present a modeling strategy based on the vertically integrated and time-averaged momentum equations accounting for roller contribution that is applied to the Biscarrosse experiment. Wave and flow predictions in the surf zone improve significantly when using a spatially constant time-varying breaking parameter by Smith and Kraus (1990). The model correctly reproduces the main evolving behaviors of the rip current. An advection-diffusion equation governing the mean wave-driven current vertical vorticity is further derived from the momentum equations. Vertical vorticity is driven by a forcing term that depends on the breaking wave energy dissipation and on the wave propagation direction. Spatial gradients in depth-induced broken-wave energy dissipation therefore determine both the strength and the sign of the wave-driven circulation rotational nature. When applied to the Biscarrosse experiment, the vorticity efficiently predicts the main characteristics of the evolving rip current such as its width, cross-shore extension, and intensity. In addition, good correlations are found between the maximum rip current intensity and the deviation of the forcing term. Thus, we determine precisely the rotational component associated with the wave forcing which is less direct through the traditional radiation stress approach.Citation: Bruneau, N., P. Bonneton, B. Castelle, and R. Pedreros (2011), Modeling rip current circulations and vorticity in a high-energy mesotidal-macrotidal environment,

An accurate determination of turbulent exchanges between the ocean and the atmosphere is a prerequisite to identify and assess the mechanisms of interaction that control part of the variability in the two media over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. An extended dataset for estimating air-sea fluxes (representing nearly 5700 h of turbulence measurements) has been collected since 1992 during six dedicated experiments performed in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. This paper presents the methodology used through the successive experiments to progress in this field. The major developments concern (i) flux instrumentation, with the deployment of a microwave refractometer to get the latent heat flux in most meteorological conditions; (ii) the analysis of airflow distortion effects around the ship structure and sensors through both computational fluid dynamics and physical simulations in a water tank, then the derivation of correction for these effects; (iii) the application of both inertial dissipation and eddy-correlation methods from the various experiments, allowing the authors to assess and discuss flux-determination methods on ships, and particularly bulk parameterization; (iv) the validation and analysis of mesoscale surface flux fields from models and satellites by using ship data, showing some deficiencies in operational model fields from ECMWF, the need of high-quality fluxes to interpret oceanatmosphere exchanges, and the potential advantage of satellite retrieval methods. Further analysis of these datasets is being performed in a unique database (the ALBATROS project, open to the international scientific community). It will include refinement of airflow distortion correction and reprocessing of earlier datasets, the investigation of fluxes under specific conditions (low wind), and the effect of sea state among others. It will also contribute to further validation and improvements of satellite retrievals in various climatic/meteorological conditions.