Meteotsunamis in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and their possible link to El Niño Southern Oscillation

Olabarrieta, Maitane; Valle‐Levinson, Arnoldo; Martinez, Christopher J.; Pattiaratchi, Charitha; Shi, Luming

doi:10.1007/s11069-017-2922-3

Cited by 35 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The meteotsunami at Dayyer had the character of a solitary wave (''solitone''), typical for ''beach meteotsunamis''. Only one impulse-type oscillation is seen at this site, similar to the wave that was recorded at Panama City, Florida on 28 March 2014 (Olabarrieta et al 2017) and the wave which impacted Odessa beaches, Ukraine on 27 June 2014 (Š epić et al 2018b). At Asaluyeh, the initial soliton wave came into the harbour and generated seiches within the harbour.…”

Section: Spectral and Wavelet Analysessupporting

confidence: 65%

Meteorological Tsunami of 19 March 2017 in the Persian Gulf: Observations and Analyses

Heidarzadeh

Šepić

Rabinovich

et al. 2019

Pure Appl. Geophys.

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On 19 March 2017, destructive tsunami-like waves impacted the northeast shore of the Persian Gulf (PG). The maximum surveyed runup of about 3 m was observed at Dayyer in southern Iran, where damaging waves inundated the land for a distance of * 1 km and resulted in the deaths of five people. Because the PG has always been considered safe from extreme oceanic waves, the event was totally unexpected. In this study, we examined sea level data from 12 stations across the PG and a variety of meteorological information, including satellite imagery, high-altitude isohypse maps and high-resolution air pressure records from 47 instruments along the PG. Our results show that the event was very local, with recorded maximum trough-to-crest wave heights of 197 cm at Dayyer and 234 cm at Asaluyeh, nearfield cities in Iran located * 80 km apart. The dominant wave periods were in the range of 15-20 min. At all distant tide gauges, the observed wave heights were \ 35 cm. No earthquakes or landslides were evident at the time of the event. On the other hand, atmospheric processes during 18-22 March were very active and 10 distinctive tsunamigenic air pressure disturbances were observed propagating over the PG, suggesting that the event of 19 March 2017 was a ''meteorological tsunami''. Atmospheric conditions over the PG were highly favourable for the generation of meteotsunamis and very similar to those that caused a chain of strong meteotsunamis in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions during 23-27 June 2014. Based on the 500 hPa wind, we evaluated that the disturbances had propagation speeds of 21-38 m/s, with the disturbance at Dayyer having a speed of * 26 m/s toward 77°T rue. The Froude number, Fr (estimated as the ratio of the air disturbance speed to the long wave speed), on 19 March 2017 in the Dayyer/Asaluyeh region was close to resonance, Fr * 0.9 to 1.1, which is highly favourable for meteotsunami generation. Our findings indicate that the Dayyer/Asaluyeh area is a ''hot spot'' that is highly vulnerable to extreme, weather-induced tsunami-like waves.

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Section: Spectral and Wavelet Analysessupporting

confidence: 65%

Meteorological Tsunami of 19 March 2017 in the Persian Gulf: Observations and Analyses

Heidarzadeh

Šepić

Rabinovich

et al. 2019

Pure Appl. Geophys.

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“…The presence of meteotsunamis is defined as water level anomalies that exceed (in absolute value) six times the standard deviation of the water level anomaly. While this threshold is higher than the value suggested by Monserrat et al 8 , it is more conservative and appropriate for our specific study sites because it ensures the exclusion of waves triggered only by the inverted barometer effect 7 . For each TC, we computed the maximum water level anomalies within the Gulf of Mexico, Eastern Unites States, and Puerto Rico.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…We used the Matlab toolbox by Grinsted et al 19 , to compute and plot normalized wavelet power spectra, using a Morlet wavelet (with a nondimensional frequency = 6) for the continuous wavelet transform. The cumulative distributions of the maximum meteotsunami elevation climatology were computed following the method proposed by Olabarrieta et al 7 , in which the Hilbert transform is used to estimate the envelope of the water level anomaly and from which each single meteotsunami event is extracted. We used the NEXRAD atmospheric radar reflectivity mosaics from NOAA to depict the spatial and temporal structure of the TC rainbands and to estimate their speed and direction of propagation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of rainfall has also become evident in recent hurricanes (e.g., Harvey, 2017; Florence, 2018). Regardless of the observational evidence that TCs and remnants of TCs have the potential to generate meteotsunamis [5][6][7] that can add to total water levels, their frequency and triggering and propagation mechanisms have not been analyzed yet. Moreover, these types of water level oscillations are usually not considered when forecasting and assessing TC impacts in coastal regions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Tropical cyclone rainbands can trigger meteotsunamis

et al. 2020

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Tropical cyclones are one of the most destructive natural hazards and much of the damage and casualties they cause are flood-related. Accurate characterization and prediction of total water levels during extreme storms is necessary to minimize coastal impacts. While meteotsunamis are known to influence water levels and to produce severe consequences, their impacts during tropical cyclones are underappreciated. This study demonstrates that meteotsunami waves commonly occur during tropical cyclones, and that they can contribute significantly to total water levels. We use an idealized coupled ocean-atmosphere-wave numerical model to analyze tropical cyclone-induced meteotsunami generation and propagation mechanisms. We show that the most extreme meteotsunami events are triggered by inherent features of the structure of tropical cyclones: inner and outer spiral rainbands. While outer distant spiral rainbands produce single-peak meteotsunami waves, inner spiral rainbands trigger longer lasting wave trains on the front side of the tropical cyclones.

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“…During the past decade, meteorological tsunamis or meteotsunamis-destructive long waves in the tsunami frequency band generated by traveling atmospheric disturbances (Monserrat et al, 2006)-have become the object of an increasing number of studies all over the globe (Cho et al, 2013;Dusek et al, 2019;Masina et al, 2017;Okal et al, 2014;Olabarrieta et al, 2017;Pattiaratchi & Wijeratne, 2014;Pellikka et al, 2014;Šepić et al, 2012;Tanaka, 2010;Whitmore & White, 2014). These extreme events have the potential to produce substantial damages to houses, goods, and infrastructures (Hibiya & Kajiura, 1982;Linares et al, 2019;Salaree et al, 2018)-for example, not only more than seven million U.S. dollars have been lost in Vela Luka harbor, Croatia during the 21 June 1978 meteotsunami (Orlić et al, 2010;Vučetić et al, 2009), but human lives were also claimed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stochastic Surrogate Model for Meteotsunami Early Warning System in the Eastern Adriatic Sea

et al. 2019

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The meteotsunami early warning system prototype using stochastic surrogate approach and running operationally in the eastern Adriatic Sea is presented. First, the atmospheric internal gravity waves (IGWs) driving the meteotsunamis are either forecasted with state-of-the-art deterministic models at least a day in advance or detected through measurements at least 2 hr before the meteotsunami reaches sensitive locations. The extreme sea-level hazard forecast at endangered locations is then derived with an innovative stochastic surrogate model-implemented with generalized polynomial chaos expansion (gPCE) method and synthetic IGWs forcing a barotropic ocean model-used with the input parameters extracted from deterministic model results and/or measurements. The evaluation of the system, both against five historical events and for all the detected potential meteotsunamis since late 2018 when the early warning system prototype became operational, reveals that the meteotsunami hazard is conservatively assessed but often overestimated at some locations. Despite some needed improvements and developments, this study demonstrates that gPCE-based methods can be used for atmospherically driven extreme sea-level hazard assessment and in geosciences in wide.Plain Language Summary Atmospherically driven extreme sea-level events are one of the major threats to people and assets in the coastal regions. Assessing the hazard associated with such events together with uncertainty quantification in a precise and timely manner is thus of primary importance in modern societies. In this study, an early warning system for the eastern Adriatic meteotsunamis, destructive long waves with periods from few minutes up to an hour generated by traveling atmospheric disturbances, is presented and evaluated. The system is based on state-of-the-art deterministic atmospheric and ocean models as well as an innovative statistical model developed to forecast the meteotsunami hazard. The evaluation reveals that the meteotsunami hazard is conservatively assessed but often overestimated. This study demonstrates that the presented methodology can be used for extreme sea-level hazard assessment and in general for hazard studies in geosciences.

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Meteotsunamis in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and their possible link to El Niño Southern Oscillation

Cited by 35 publications

References 24 publications

Meteorological Tsunami of 19 March 2017 in the Persian Gulf: Observations and Analyses

Meteorological Tsunami of 19 March 2017 in the Persian Gulf: Observations and Analyses

Tropical cyclone rainbands can trigger meteotsunamis

Stochastic Surrogate Model for Meteotsunami Early Warning System in the Eastern Adriatic Sea

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