Coastal extreme sea levels in the Caribbean Sea induced by tropical cyclones

Abstract

Every year the Caribbean Sea faces the passage of several tropical cyclones that generate coastal extreme sea levels with potential strong and hazardous impacts. In this work we simulate the storm surges and wind waves induced by a set of 1000 tropical cyclones over the Caribbean Sea that are representative of the present-day climate. These events have been extracted from a global database of synthetic tropical cyclones spanning a 10 000-year period. The atmospheric forcing fields, associated with the set of tropical cyclones, are used to feed a coupled hydrodynamic–wave model with high resolution (∼ 2 km) along the continental and island coasts. Given the large number of events modelled, our results allow detailed statistical analyses of the magnitude and mechanisms of coastal extreme sea levels, as well as the identification of one of the most exposed areas to both storm surges and extreme wind waves.