Computer model projection

Example of flooding hazards predicted from the CoSMoS hindcast of the January 2010 storm, with and without sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios, in the region of Venice and Marina del Rey, CA.

January 2010 El Niño and Sea-Level Rise Scenarios: The El Niño-fueled storm of January 18–25, 2010, produced large waves (offshore deep-water waves up to 9 meters high) that remained elevated for a week, producing some of the most extreme coastal erosion observed for several decades throughout California (Barnard and others, 2011). This event provided numerous observations both for model forcing and validation, and provided managers with data from a known severe storm, thus serving as an optimal extreme-storm test case for CoSMoS. In addition to running a hindcast of this event with CoSMoS, future (2050 and 2100) sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios were also applied using the upper-end values from Rahmstorf (2007) (0.5 meter and 1.4 meter, respectively). These water levels were added to the tidal forcing for the January 2010 storm to estimate the potential for increased flooding that could result from various SLR scenarios combined with a recent, well-documented coastal storm.