Hydrodynamic modelling for simulating nearshore waves and sea levels: classification of extreme events from the English Channel to the Normandy coasts

Abstract

Assessing the vulnerability of coastal systems to storms often rely on an accurate modelling of extreme events and the identification of their impacts that depend on their physical characteristics. This requires the development of an exhaustive numerical downscaling of extreme hydrodynamics from deep to shallow areas to enhance our ability to predict the risks induced by these events, which is of fundamental importance for coastal managers. This work aims at investigating the nearshore dynamics of extreme events and their evolution from the shelf seas of the English Channel to the Normandy Coasts by developing a new numerical field of wave and sea level simulations during a period of 40 years. This dataset has been explored for the classification of extreme events considering their severity, direction, and duration. The overall results highlighted that more than 90% of the storms are coming from the Atlantic Ocean with a substantial change in their amplitude and their duration along the Channel: storms with Northern component are more severe while those coming from the South last longer with higher energy. A detailed monitoring of three different storm events exhibited that their impact depends on their travelling direction, being more significant for hydrodynamic events propagating following the orientation of the Channel, of about 70 degrees to the North, with lower diffraction. Extreme events coming from South Atlantic experience a stronger wave modulation when they arrive nearshore.

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