Award Abstract # 1854993
PREEVENTS Track 2: Collaborative Research: Predicting Hurricane Risk along the United States East Coast in a Changing Climate

NSF Org: RISE
Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER)
Recipient: THE TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: May 29, 2019
Latest Amendment Date: July 6, 2019
Award Number: 1854993
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Justin Lawrence
jlawrenc@nsf.gov
 (703)292-2425
RISE
 Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER)
GEO
 Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date: June 1, 2019
End Date: May 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $321,808.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $321,808.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2019 = $321,808.00
History of Investigator:
  • Ning Lin (Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Princeton University
1 NASSAU HALL
PRINCETON
NJ  US  08544-2001
(609)258-3090
Sponsor Congressional District: 12
Primary Place of Performance: Princeton University
Princeton
NJ  US  08544-2020
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
12
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): NJ1YPQXQG7U5
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): PREEVENTS - Prediction of and
Primary Program Source: 01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s): 034Y00
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.050

ABSTRACT

Changes to hurricane activity in the coming century has the potential to catastrophically impact the entire economic landscape of American coastal region. Unfortunately, significant uncertainty in projections of future hurricane risk exist because the climatic drivers of changes in hurricane activity is poorly known. This is exacerbated by the exceedingly short instrumental record of hurricane occurrence in the western Atlantic, which makes diagnosing the climatic controls on hurricane activity difficult. This project utilizes historical and long-term geological reconstructions of hurricane activity in the western North Atlantic, which extends our knowledge of hurricane occurrence back centuries and even millennia. This approach allows assessment of how the risk posed by hurricanes along the east coast of the United States has changed. Further, the researchers will use state of the art numerical models to both diagnose the key climatic conditions that contribute to changes in hurricane activity and to provide improved projections of future hurricane risk. Many of the lessons learned from this work will be used by the broader scientific community and planners and decision-makers to improve our preparedness and resilience to possible future changes in hurricane risk. The results will inform risk modeling, which in turn informs the insurance and re-insurance industries, as well as efforts to mitigate tropical cyclone hazards at the city, state and federal levels. Finally, the project will provide the opportunity to train and educate the next generation of scientists with the engagement of graduate, undergraduate and high school students.

This study takes an integrated research approach that addresses two broad questions: 1) How is the risk of floods changing due to (a) storm surge and (b) rainfall? 2) How do processes like changes in ocean circulations (e.g., Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) and the response to low latitude volcanic eruptions modulate hurricane activity, both generally and specifically for US landfalling storms? Reconstruction of past changes in hurricane landfalls along the Northeast US, Florida east coast, and northwestern Gulf of Mexico will be coupled with hydrodynamic modeling of tropical cyclone related storm surges and waves and downscaled estimates of TC-related rainfall. This approach will allow determination of changes in risk of TC-induced flooding over the last millennium. This will form the baseline for examining future risk and for examining critical forcing mechanisms that may significantly alter future regional landfall probabilities. Downscaling the latest (CMIP6) global model output coupled with hydrodynamic modeling of surge and waves will be used to assess current and future risk of TC-induced flooding. In addition, we will explore the potential influence of volcanic aerosols that penetrate the stratosphere on TC activity. Further, this study plans to examine the influence of changes in ocean circulation on TCs, which affects the probability of intense hurricane landfalls by altering the amount of ocean heat content available to TCs close to landfall.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Gori, Avantika and Lin, Ning and Xi, Dazhi "Tropical Cyclone Compound Flood Hazard Assessment: From Investigating Drivers to Quantifying Extreme Water Levels" Earth's Future , v.8 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001660 Citation Details
Gori, Avantika and Lin, Ning and Xi, Dazhi and Emanuel, Kerry "Tropical cyclone climatology change greatly exacerbates US extreme rainfallsurge hazard" Nature Climate Change , v.12 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01272-7 Citation Details
Marsooli, Reza and Lin, Ning "Impacts of climate change on hurricane flood hazards in Jamaica Bay, New York" Climatic Change , v.163 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02932-x Citation Details
Xi, Dazhi and Lin, Ning "Investigating the Physical Drivers for the Increasing Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Hazard in the United States" Geophysical Research Letters , v.49 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL099196 Citation Details
Xi, Dazhi and Lin, Ning "Sequential Landfall of Tropical Cyclones in the United States: From Historical Records to Climate Projections" Geophysical Research Letters , v.48 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094826 Citation Details
Xi, Dazhi and Lin, Ning "Understanding Uncertainties in Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Hazard Modeling Using Synthetic Storms" Journal of Hydrometeorology , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-21-0208.1 Citation Details
Xi, Dazhi and Lin, Ning and Nadal-Caraballo, Norberto C. and Yawn, Madison C. "Assessing North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Hazard Using Engineered-Synthetic Storms and a Physics-Based Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Model" Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology , v.62 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-22-0131.1 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

 

This project performed tropical cyclone (TC) risk analysis for key geographic regions across North America and the Caribbean, to enhance our fundamental understanding of the processes that lead to changes in TC activity and improve our ability to model these changes and project future TC risk. Specifically, it integrated simulations to investigate compound and sequential TC hazards (i.e., extreme wind, storm surge, and heavy rainfall) in the historical and future climates for the entire U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It developed a novel framework for interpreting paleohurricane records and integrating the paleo records with physical modeling to assess long-term hurricane and storm surge risk (with an application to The Bahamas). It performed multi-scale basin-to-local hydrodynamic modeling to investigate how coastal flood inundation risk will change under storm climatology change and sea level rise (with an application to Jamaica Bay, NY). It also explored the application of physics-based TC hazard models in engineering design, through coupling a TC rainfall model with engineered-synthetic storms (developed by Army Corps of Engineers) to assess TC rainfall hazard.

 

The project produced nine papers on TC hazards and risk, published in a wide range of scientific journals, including high impact journals such as Nature Climate Change. Four postdoctoral research associates, three graduate students, and four undergraduate students participated in the project. With strong backgrounds in science and engineering and multidisciplinary training through this project, they are becoming future leaders in TC hazard and risk fields. This project has provided scientific basis and application tools to improve coastal resilience and climate change adaptation. Some results from the project are being incorporated into a real-time TC hazard forecasting tool. The PI has engaged in giving public lectures and disseminating research results through media exposure. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Last Modified: 09/29/2023
Modified by: Ning Lin

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