Pressure-forced meteotsunami occurrences in the eastern Yellow Sea over the past decade (2010–2019): monitoring guidelines

Abstract

Abstract. The eastern Yellow Sea meteotsunami occurrences between 2010 and 2019 and guidelines derived using favourable conditions of pressure disturbance (10 min rate of air pressure change) for meteotsunami generation are described. A total of 34 meteotsunami events over the past decade can be classified based on a current meteotsunami monitoring and observation system. 1 min intervals of mean sea level pressure and sea level observations from 89 meteorological stations and 16 tide gauges are analysed. Most of the classified meteotsunami events (76 %, 26/34) in the eastern Yellow Sea are found to be between February and June during the winter-to-summer transition, which shows a strong seasonal trend. The meteotsunami occurrences are spatially frequent at the DaeHeuksando (DH) tide gauge, known as a beacon tide gauge of the observation system. It appears that the specific characteristics (intensity, occurrence rate, and propagation) of the pressure disturbance are in common on extreme meteotsunami events that are classified by applying the hazardous meteotsunami conditions among the 34 events. For a risk level assessment of the eastern Yellow Sea meteotsunami occurrences, favourable conditions of the pressure disturbance for meteotsunami generation are utilized. Overall, this study can provide useful and practical guidelines such as operation period, potential hot spot, and risk level to monitoring system operators when operating the monitoring system of the Yellow Sea.