Assessing future wave climate in the Ebro Delta using SWAN nested modelling and CMIP6 wind projections
Coastal communities and ecosystems around the world are currently facing serious threats including flooding and erosion, which will be exacerbated by climate change in the coming century. While many studies focus on sea level rise, altered wind-wave climates will also play an important role in the e...
| Autores: | , , , , , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/420200 |
| Acesso em linha: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/420200 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Wave projections CMIP6 SWAN Ebro Delta Nested modelling Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria civil::Enginyeria hidràulica, marítima i sanitària |
| Resumo: | Coastal communities and ecosystems around the world are currently facing serious threats including flooding and erosion, which will be exacerbated by climate change in the coming century. While many studies focus on sea level rise, altered wind-wave climates will also play an important role in the evolution of future coastal hazards. Projected changes in wave patterns vary by location, with some areas expecting more frequent and intense wave events and others expecting calmer wave climates. As a result, studies at local or regional scales focusing on specific vulnerable coastal areas are extremely important. Intense wave storms including Storm Gloria in 2020 have caused serious flooding and erosion in the Ebro Delta in southern Catalonia. Understanding the future evolution of the wind-wave climate near the Ebro Delta is, therefore, critical for planning future mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect the area’s population, infrastructure, and ecosystems. To project future wave climate, wind-wave models such as the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model can be forced with wind projections from global climate models (GCMs). As GCMs are improved, additional data is collected, and new climate change scenarios are analyzed, incorporating the most recent wind projections into wave climate studies is important. Currently, research using projections from CMIP6, the latest phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, is lacking, particularly in the Western Mediterranean. In this study, wave projections were generated in three domains— the Western Mediterranean, the Catalan Coast, and the Ebro Delta—using SWAN nested models forced with wind projections for two climate scenarios, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, from 20 different GCMs developed under CMIP6. The findings of this research provide insight into future changes in wave climate in the Western Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the Ebro Delta. |
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