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Past to future extreme events in Liverpool Bay: model projections from 1960–2100

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Abstract

Knowledge of the likely future wind, wave and surge climate in Liverpool Bay is of importance for coastal flood defence management. We examine a 140-year time series (1960–2100) of wind and wave model projections at the WaveNet buoy location in Liverpool Bay and also of surge model projection at two ports in Liverpool Bay, namely Liverpool and Heysham. To this end we use model projections from the UK Climate Projections 09 (UKCP09) programme. We use a medium emissions scenario ensemble from the HadCM3 climate model sensitivity tests. A continental shelf model (CS3) with ~12 km resolution was used to separately simulate the waves and the surge. The models are forced by hourly wind and pressure data from the Met Office (Hadley Centre) regional climate model (RCM). Swell wave boundary conditions are generated over the full Atlantic using global climate model (GCM) winds. Analysis of significant changes in the statistics over time shows that there is little change in extreme wave and surge conditions in Liverpool Bay. Although there is a slight increase in the severity of the most extreme events, the frequency of extreme wind and wave events is slightly reduced, while the frequency of extreme surge events slightly increases over the 140-year period. From the model projections, we find that the trends in the local wind are directly reflected in the wave field within Liverpool Bay. The trends in the skew surge projections deviate slightly from those in the wind patterns.

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Acknowledgments

The CoFEE project is funded under the NERC Flood Risk in Extreme Environments (FREE) program (grant NE/E002471/1) and the MICORE project is funded by the EU FP7 program (grant 202798). Both of these projects are researching the future extreme conditions in Liverpool Bay. The wave projections were funded by the Tyndall Centre Coasts programme and the surge projections were provided by Tom Howard (Met Office) as part of the UKCP09. Thanks to the UK Climate Impacts Program (UKCP09) in particular Jason Lowe (Met Office/Hadley centre) for allowing us to use the model projections. The help of Mary Hunt in analyzing some of the data as part of a Nuffield project was also appreciated.

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  1. National Oceanography Centre, Joseph Proudman Building, 6 Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L3 5DA, UK

    Jennifer M. Brown, Judith Wolf & Alejandro J. Souza

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  1. Jennifer M. Brown
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  2. Judith Wolf
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  3. Alejandro J. Souza
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Correspondence to Jennifer M. Brown.

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Brown, J.M., Wolf, J. & Souza, A.J. Past to future extreme events in Liverpool Bay: model projections from 1960–2100. Climatic Change 111, 365–391 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0145-2

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