Abstract
Long-term changes of environmental conditions are fundamentally important for many sectors in the maritime industry. Observational evidence from which such long-term changes may be reliably derived is often limited. Here we briefly illustrate the present situation and present an approach on how quasirealistic environmental models can be used in combination with existing data to reconstruct recent long-term changes and to derive scenarios of future developments. We concentrate on variables of primary importance for the maritime industry, namely wind-storms, wind-waves and storm surges. Examples are provided for the North Sea area.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexandersson, H., H. Tuomenvirta, T. Schmidth, and K. Iden. 2000. Trends of storms in NW Europe derived from an updated pressure data set.Climate Research 14: 71–73.
Bärring, L., and H. von Storch. 2004. Scandinavian storminess since about 1800.Geophysical Research Letters 31: L20202, doi:10.1029/2004GL020441.
Bengtsson, L., K.I. Hodges, and E. Roeckner. 2006. Storm tracks and climate change.Journal of Climate 19: 3518–3542.
Feser, F., R. Weisse, and H. von Storch. 2001. Multi-decadal atmospheric modeling for Europe yields multi-purpose data.Eos Transactions 82(28): 305–310.
Kalnay, E., M. Kanamitsu, R. Kistler, W. Collins, D. Deaven, L. Gandin, M. Iredell, S. Saha, G. White, J. Woollen, Y. Zhu, M. Chelliah, W. Ebisuzaki, W. Higgins, J. Janowiak, K.C. Mo, C. Ropelewski, J. Wang, A. Leetmaa, R. Reynolds, R. Jenne, and D. Joseph. 1996. The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis project.Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77: 437–471.
PRUDENCE, Prediction of regional scenarios and uncertainties for defining European climate change risks and effects, http://prudence.dmi.dk/ Räisänen, J., Räisänen, U. Hansson, A. Ullerstig, R. Döscher, L.P. Graham, C. Jones, H.E.M. Meier, P. Samuelsson, and U. Willén. 2004. European climate in the late twenty-first century: regional simulations with two driving global models and two forcing scenarios.Climate Dynamics 22: 13–31, doi:10.1007/s00382-003-0365-x.
Uppala, S.M., P.W. Kallberg, A.J. Simmons, U. Andrae, V. da Costa Bechtold, M. Fiorino, J.K. Gibson, J. Haseler, A. Hernandez, G.A. Kelly, X. Li, K. Onogi, S. Saarinen, N. Sokka, R.P. Allan, E. Andersson, K. Arpe, M.A. Balmaseda, A.C.M. Beljaars, L. van de Berg, J. Bidlot, N. Bormann, S. Caires, F. Chevallier, A. Dethof, M. Dragosavac, M. Fisher, M. Fuentes, S. Hagemann, E. Holm, B.J. Hoskins, L. Isaksen, P.A.E.M. Janssen, R. Jenne, A.P. McNally, J-F. Mahfouf, J-J. Morcrette, N.A. Rayner, R.W. Saunders, P. Simon, A. Sterl, K.E. Trenberth, A. Untch, D. Vasiljevic, P. Viterbo, and J. Woollen. 2005. The ERA-40 re-analysis.Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 131: 2961–3012.
Von Storch, H., H. Langenberg, and F. Feser. 2000. A spectral nudging technique for dynamical downscaling purposes.Monthly Weather Review 128: 3664–3673.
WASA Group. 1998. Changing waves and storms in the Northeast Atlantic?Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 741–760.
Weisse, R. and H. Günther. 2007. Wave climate and long-term changes for the Southern North Sea obtained from a high-resolution hindcast 1958–2002.Ocean Dynamics 57: 161–172, doi:10.1007/s10236-006-0094-x.
Weisse, R. and A. Plüß. 2006. Storm-related sea level variations along the North Sea coast as simulated by a high-resolution model 1958–2002.Ocean Dynamics 56: 16–25, doi:10.1007/s10236-005-0037-y.
Weisse, R., H. von Storch, and F. Feser. 2005. Northeast Atlantic and North Sea storminess as simulated by a regional climate model 1958–2001 and comparison with observations.Journal of Climate 18: 465–479, doi:10.1175/JCLI-3281.1.
Woth, K. 2005. North Sea storm surge statistics based on projections in a warmer climate: How important are the driving GCM and the chosen emission scenario?Geophysical Research Letters 32: L22708, doi:10.1029/2005GL023762.
Woth, K., Woth, R. Weisse, and H. von Storch. 2006. Climate change and North Sea storm surge extremes: An ensemble study of storm surge extremes expected in a changed climate projected by four different regional climate models.Ocean Dynamics 56: 3–15, doi:10.1007/s10236-005-0024-3.
Zahn, M., H. von Storch and S. Bakan. 2007. Climate mode simulation of North Atlantic polar lows in a limited area model.Tellus, submitted.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weisse, R., von Stoch, H. Reconstructions of marine environmental conditions and scenarios for future changes. WMU J Marit Affairs 6, 183–191 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03195113
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03195113