Projected Changes to Cool-Season Storm Tides in the 21st Century along
the Northeastern United States Coast
Abstract
This study investigates changes and uncertainties to cool-season
(November-March) storm tides along the U.S. northeast coast in the 21st
century under the high RCP8.5 emission scenario compared to late 20th
century. A high-fidelity (50-m coastal resolution) hydrodynamic storm
tide model is forced with three dynamically-downscaled regional climate
models (RCMs) over three decadal periods (historical, mid-21st century
and late-21st century) to project future changes in peak storm tide
elevations at coastal counties in the region. While there is no absolute
consensus on future changes to storm tides, for any one future decade
two out of the three RCMs project an increase at counties along the
Hudson River, Delaware River and northern Chesapeake Bay due to more
intense cyclones that track inland of these locations leading to
favorable surge generating conditions. The same RCMs also project a
decrease at counties facing the open ocean in the mid-Atlantic Bight as
cyclone densities just offshore of the coastline decrease, particularly
by late-century. The larger tidal range in northern areas leads to
significant uncertainty due to the arbitrary relationship between the
local tidal stage and when a surge event occurs, which affects both the
magnitude and sign of the projected changes. This tide-surge timing is
less important in the Chesapeake Bay and unimportant in Albemarle Sound
and Pamlico Sound. Similar to other recent studies, we highlight that
sea level rise is likely to be more critical than storm climatology for
future changes to the cool-season coastal flooding potential.