Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Typological representation of the offshore oceanographic environment along the Alaskan North Slope

Journal Article · · Continental Shelf Research
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [2];  [5];  [1]
  1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  2. Integral Consulting Inc., Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  3. US Geological Survey (USGS), Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  4. Deltares USA, Silver Spring, MD (United States)
  5. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Erosion and flooding impacts to Arctic coastal environments are intensifying with nearshore oceanographic conditions acting as a key environmental driver. Robust and comprehensive assessment of the nearshore oceanographic conditions require knowledge of the following boundary conditions: incident wave energy, water level, incident wind energy, ocean temperature and salinity, bathymetry, and shoreline orientation. The number of offshore oceanographic boundary conditions can be large, requiring a significant computational investment to reproduce nearshore conditions. This present study develops location-independent typologies to reduce the number of boundary conditions needed to assess nearshore oceanographic environments in both a Historical (2007–2019) and Future (2020–2040) timespan along the Alaskan North Slope. We used WAVEWATCH III® and Delft3D Flexible Mesh model output from six oceanographic sites located along a constant ~50 m bathymetric line spanning the Chukchi to Beaufort Seas. K-means clustering was applied to the energy-weighted joint-probability distribution of significant wave height (Hs) and peak period (Tp). Distributions of wave and wind direction, wind speed, and water level associated with location-independent centroids were assigned single values to describe a reduced order, typological rendition of offshore oceanographic conditions. Reanalysis data (e.g., ASRv2, ERA5, and GOFS) grounded the historical simulations while projected conditions were obtained from downscaled GFDL-CM3 forced under RCP8.5 conditions. Location-dependence for each site is established through the occurrence joint-probability distribution in the form of unique scaling factors representing the fraction of time that the typology would occupy over a representative year. As anticipated, these typologies show increasingly energetic ocean conditions in the future. They also enable computationally efficient simulation of the nearshore oceanographic environment along the North Slope of Alaska for better characterization of coastal processes (e.g., erosion, flooding, or sediment transport).
Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USGS Coastal Marine Geology Program; US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
NA0003525
OSTI ID:
1877167
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1875000
Report Number(s):
SAND2022-9580J; 708243
Journal Information:
Continental Shelf Research, Journal Name: Continental Shelf Research Vol. 244; ISSN 0278-4343
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (55)

Dynamics of sea level rise and coastal flooding on a changing landscape: BILSKIE ET AL. journal February 2014
Modeling erosion of ice-rich permafrost bluffs along the Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast journal May 2014
Swell and sea in the emerging Arctic Ocean journal May 2014
Particulate organic carbon and nitrogen export from major Arctic rivers: POC and PN Export From Major Arctic Rivers journal May 2016
Observed storminess patterns and trends in the circum-Arctic coastal regime journal June 2005
Modelling the global ocean tides: modern insights from FES2004 journal September 2006
Efficient scheme for the shallow water equations on unstructured grids with application to the Continental Shelf journal May 2011
Context and climate change: an integrated assessment for Barrow, Alaska journal February 2007
The representative concentration pathways: an overview journal August 2011
Identification and classification of storm surge events at Red Dog Dock, Alaska, 2004–2014 journal December 2016
Climigration? Population and climate change in Arctic Alaska journal June 2016
Erosion and Flooding—Threats to Coastal Infrastructure in the Arctic: A Case Study from Herschel Island, Yukon Territory, Canada journal November 2015
Navigating climate change adaptation assistance for communities: a case study of Newtok Village, Alaska journal July 2021
A thermo-mechanical terrestrial model of Arctic coastal erosion journal December 2021
Analysis of clustering and selection algorithms for the study of multivariate wave climate journal June 2011
Wave climate and longshore drift on the South Aquitaine coast journal October 2006
Circulation and water properties in the landfast ice zone of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea journal September 2017
Estimating future costs for Alaska public infrastructure at risk from climate change journal August 2008
Assessment of climate change adaptation costs for the U.S. road network journal August 2013
Variability of multivariate wave climate in Latin America and the Caribbean journal January 2013
Wave energy resource characterisation of the Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site journal April 2013
Emerging trends in the sea state of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas journal September 2016
High resolution modeling of western Alaskan tides and storm surge under varying sea ice conditions journal September 2019
The urgency of Arctic change journal September 2019
Characterizing the wave energy resource of the US Pacific Northwest journal August 2011
Increase in the rate and uniformity of coastline erosion in Arctic Alaska: HIGHER AND MORE UNIFORM ARCTIC EROSION journal February 2009
Sea ice loss enhances wave action at the Arctic coast: SEA ICE LOSS ENHANCES EROSION journal September 2011
A parametrization, based on sea ice morphology, of the neutral atmospheric drag coefficients for weather prediction and climate models: NEUTRAL DRAG COEFFICIENTS OVER SEA ICE journal July 2012
Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones journal April 2018
Projections of Extreme Ocean Waves in the Arctic and Potential Implications for Coastal Inundation and Erosion journal August 2020
Sea Ice Retreat Contributes to Projected Increases in Extreme Arctic Ocean Surface Waves journal August 2020
Activation of old carbon by erosion of coastal and subsea permafrost in Arctic Siberia journal August 2012
Collapsing Arctic coastlines journal January 2017
Permafrost-carbon complexities journal August 2013
Drivers, dynamics and impacts of changing Arctic coasts journal January 2022
Process-Based Coastal Erosion Modeling for Drew Point, North Slope, Alaska journal March 2012
Adaptive governance and institutional strategies for climate-induced community relocations in Alaska journal May 2013
Climate change damages to Alaska public infrastructure and the economics of proactive adaptation journal December 2016
Mapping Exposure to Flooding in Three Coastal Communities on the North Slope of Alaska Using Airborne LiDAR journal March 2020
Changing state of Arctic sea ice across all seasons journal September 2018
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic journal October 2018
An Equatorial Ocean Recharge Paradigm for ENSO. Part I: Conceptual Model journal April 1997
Review of Drag Coefficients over Oceans and Continents journal July 1977
A Factorial Analysis of Storm Surge Flooding in Barrow, Alaska journal March 2008
The Dynamical Core, Physical Parameterizations, and Basic Simulation Characteristics of the Atmospheric Component AM3 of the GFDL Global Coupled Model CM3 journal July 2011
The GFDL CM3 Coupled Climate Model: Characteristics of the Ocean and Sea Ice Simulations journal July 2011
The Arctic System Reanalysis, Version 2 journal April 2018
Dynamical Downscaling of ERA-Interim Temperature and Precipitation for Alaska journal March 2016
A Multimodal Wave Spectrum–Based Approach for Statistical Downscaling of Local Wave Climate journal February 2017
Operational multivariate ocean data assimilation journal October 2005
Storm-Surge Flooding on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska journal September 2014
Past and future forcing of Beaufort Sea coastal change journal June 2007
Geochemistry of Coastal Permafrost and Erosion-Driven Organic Matter Fluxes to the Beaufort Sea Near Drew Point, Alaska journal January 2021
Variability in transport of terrigenous material on the shelves and the deep Arctic Ocean during the Holocene journal January 2015
The effect of changing sea ice on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts journal January 2014

Similar Records

Oceanographic Conditions. 2007 - 2040. North Slope Alaska.
Dataset · Tue Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · OSTI ID:1876201
Arctic Coastal Erosion: Modeling and Experimentation
Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · OSTI ID:1670531

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES