Projected sea level rise (SLR) and associated storm intensity will cause an increase in total water levels (TWL) at coastal US military facilities over the coming decades. Total water levels consist of the mean sea level, high tide, storm surge, and wave-induced runup.
The DoD climate change roadmap identified SLR and storm surge among the top four climate change phenomena that may impact DoD activities. Numerous scenarios exist for SLR with ranges from 0.2 to 2.0 m over the next 100 years. SERDP/ESTCP and other entities have funded research efforts for TWL to understand potential risk to military installations, coastlines, and infrastructure. Some past efforts focused on single modeling group frameworks and may ignore relevant wave-induced components such as setup, swash, and infragravity motions.
This project will compare empirical and numerical model predictions of coastal flooding at representative military facilities, with the goal of identifying the best practice for a facility. The project considers a suite of open-source numerical models that can include all of the relevant physics that contribute to TWL, such as SLR, tides, wind-induced surge, wave runup, and infragravity motions. Total water levels will be predicted for potential SLR, selected tropical cyclones, and storm events with varying tracks and intensities, to represent the full range of possible forcings at each site. Locations include facilities on the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts and in the Pacific Ocean to represent the full range of coastal geographies. Model performance will be compared with respect to SLR inundation depths, timing and duration of storm-driven flooding at each installation, as well as computational costs. An overview of the project, with particular emphasis on Naval Station Norfolk, will be present