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Field observation and numerical simulation of past and future storm surges in the Bay of Bengal: case study of cyclone Nargis

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Abstract

Storm surges are one of the most important risks to coastal communities around the Bay of Bengal, and it is feared that the threat they pose will increase with climate change in the future. To understand the threats that these events pose, a summary of the field surveys performed in Yangon River Basin after cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 is presented. Though due to government restrictions survey activities were limited to the area near Yangon city, it was found out that the tide due to the storm surge was probably between 3 and 4 m high and travelled around 50 km upstream of the river mouth of Yangon River. Cyclone Nargis could be accurately reproduced using a numerical model that integrated weather, wave, coastal ocean models, and tide prediction system. The application of such an integrated model is relatively new for storm surge simulation and has never been used for the Bay of Bengal storms. The model was then used to also simulate future cyclones over the Bay of Bengal considering a future climate change scenario.

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Acknowledgments

The present work was supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) No. 22404011 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Strategic Research Foundation Grant-aided Project for Private Universities from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous comments of various reviewers (and especially reviewer #2), whose suggestions for improvements helped the authors rethink various parts of the model and greatly improve the final results of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-8555, Japan

    Khandker Masuma Tasnim, Tomoya Shibayama & Ryota Nakamura

  2. Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba, Japan

    Miguel Esteban

  3. Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Hiroshi Takagi

  4. Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc., Nagoya, Japan

    Koichiro Ohira

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  1. Khandker Masuma Tasnim
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  2. Tomoya Shibayama
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  3. Miguel Esteban
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  4. Hiroshi Takagi
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  5. Koichiro Ohira
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  6. Ryota Nakamura
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Correspondence to Khandker Masuma Tasnim.

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Tasnim, K.M., Shibayama, T., Esteban, M. et al. Field observation and numerical simulation of past and future storm surges in the Bay of Bengal: case study of cyclone Nargis. Nat Hazards 75, 1619–1647 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1387-x

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