The coastal flood regime and its climate tendencies at the Havana City shore area

Abstract

The coastal flood behavior and its trends at Havana City shore area is analyzed, using archive information from some Cuban institutions and other sources. The weather events that have generated these floods (hurricane and cold fronts) from 1901 to 2015 are studied, taking into account the ENOS event influence on the winter floods and the thermohaline structure changes at the end of the XX Century, favorable to increase the destructive hurricane power, which were determined using oceanographic expedition data, obtained in deep waters around Cuba. The coastal flood behavior shows an increase in frequency and intensity in the last 40 years, as a consequence of the severe event frequency rise, under the influence of an increase of sea surface temperature, mixed layer depth and salinity in the Cuban surrounding waters. Their maximum values were located around the Cuban Western Region, which is the most favorably area to the hurricane development. Moreover, the extreme value of the sea level rise by the expected climate change, around 1 meter according to IPCC [2013], could bring the wave breaker line up to 11 meters in the Havana Seafront area, which lead to an increase of the flooding damages in the area.

Keywords

• Havana City
• coastal floods
• climate tendencies