This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A hurricane does not have to make a direct hit to affect the Chesapeake Bay. Even from out at sea, a hurricane's winds, waves and rising tides can cause major flooding.
But how much the water rises depends on a mix of interacting factors: the storm's intensity, size and speed; the shape of the shoreline; and the timing of the tide. Rising sea levels add another layer of uncertainty, slowly weakening the bay's ability to buffer storm surge and making its response harder to predict. In a new study, published in Earth's Future, Virginia Tech researchers used process-based numerical modeling to explore how the Chesapeake Bay could respond to various kinds of tropical cyclones as sea levels rise over the next 25 years.
By analyzing thousands of computer-generated storms, they were able to predict how extreme storms could affect different parts of the bay, helping communities better prepare for coastal flooding. "The same storm could play out very differently by midcentury than it would today," said Md Shadman Sakib, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering who led the project. "This study is a step toward understanding how and where that could happen." The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, stretching more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from Maryland to its mouth in Virginia.
More than 150 rivers and streams flow into the bay, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean. Its long, narrow shape and network of rivers, sounds, natural barriers and smaller waterways affect how water moves through the system. Those geographic features also make the bay's response to storms different from what might occur along an open coastline.
To study those responses, Sakib and the research team used the STORM synthetic tropical cyclone data set to create computer-generated storms. The data set represents 10,000 years of statistically generated storms, giving the researchers access to thousands of possible storm conditions. "The storms that pose the greatest flood risk are rare in historical records," said Sakib.
"Statistically generated synthetic storms let us test how the bay could respond to events it has not yet experienced." The researchers selected 90 representative storms that could affect the Chesapeake Bay. They then modeled those storms using a digital simulation tool that accounts for tides, winds, atmospheric pressure, waves, river flows and the shape and depth of the bay. The team also modeled four different sea-level conditions for 2050 based on projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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