Abstract:
Model projections of maximum flood depth, wave height, and current velocity produced using the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS). Models cover the outer coast of the Our Coast Our Future (OCOF) California study area from Bodega Head south to Half Moon Bay.
Projections include a suite of scenarios for both sea-level rise and storm scenarios. Sea-level rise scenarios span 0-2 meters in 50 cm increments as well as a 5 m scenario. Storm scenarios are comprised of None, 1, 20, and 100 year storm wave/surges. The model was created to determine the maximum depth of flooding during the given scenario- an element of vulnerability, i.e., how significant is the flooding. This data is part of the OCOF online tool found at http://data.prbo.org/apps/ocof/.
Purpose:
Climate change will increase sea levels, storm frequency and intensity, erosion, and flooding in many regions of the San Francisco Bay Area. To protect communities and ecosystems, managers and planners need locally relevant tools that help them understand vulnerabilities and plan for action.
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, PRBO Conservation Science, U.S. Geological Survey, the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and the National Park Service have teamed up to better understand the effects of sea level rise and storm hazards. Results are made available via the Our Coast–Our Future website which provides Bay Area natural resource managers, local governments and others with science-based decision-support tools to help Bay Area communities understand, visualize, and anticipate local coastal climate change impacts.
CoSMoS outputs will be used to map and assess vulnerabilities to SLR & storm hazards at appropriate scale for management action.
Supplemental_Information:
Barnard, P.L., O'Reilly, B., van Ormondt, M., Elias, E., Ruggiero, P., Erikson, L.H., Hapke, C., Collins, B.D., Guza, R.T., Adams, P.N. and Thomas, J.T., 2009. The framework of a coastal hazards model: a tool for predicting the impact of severe storms. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2009-1073, 21 pp., http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1073/
