Li Erikson
Science and Products
Coastal Climate Impacts
The impacts of climate change and sea-level rise around the Pacific and Arctic Oceans can vary tremendously. Thus far the vast majority of national and international impact assessments and models of coastal climate change have focused on low-relief coastlines that are not near seismically active zones. Furthermore, the degree to which extreme waves and wind will add further stress to coastal...
Dynamic coastlines along the western U.S.
The west coast of the United States is extremely complex and changeable because of tectonic activity, mountain building, and land subsidence. These active environments pose a major challenge for accurately assessing climate change impacts, since models were historically developed for more passive sandy coasts.
Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS)
The Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) makes detailed predictions of storm-induced coastal flooding, erosion, and cliff failures over large geographic scales. CoSMoS was developed for hindcast studies, operational applications and future climate scenarios to provide emergency responders and coastal planners with critical storm-hazards information that can be used to increase public safety...
The Impact of Sea-Level Rise and Climate Change on Pacific Ocean Atolls
Providing basic understanding and specific information on storm-wave inundation of atoll islands that house Department of Defense installations; and assessing the resulting impact of sea-level rise and storm-wave inundation on infrastructure and freshwater availability under a variety of sea-level rise and climatic scenarios....
Climate impacts to Arctic coasts
The Arctic region is warming faster than anywhere else in the nation. Understanding the rates and causes of coastal change in Alaska is needed to identify and mitigate hazards that might affect people and animals that call Alaska home.
CoSMoS 3.1: Central California
CoSMoS v3.1 for central California shows projections for future climate scenarios (sea-level rise and storms)
Using Video Imagery to Study Wave Dynamics: Unalakleet
USGS scientists installed two video cameras atop a windmill tower in Unalakleet, Alaska, pointing westward over Norton Sound, to observe and quantify coastal processes such as wave run-up, development of rip channels, bluff erosion, and movement of sandbars and ice floes.
CoSMoS 3.0: Southern California
CoSMoS 3.0 for southern California provides detailed predictions of coastal flooding due to both future sea-level rise and storms, integrated with predictions of long-term coastal evolution (beach changes and coastal cliff retreat) for the Southern California region, from Point Conception (Santa Barbara County) to Imperial Beach (San Diego County).
CoSMoS 2.2: Pt. Arena and Russian River
Building on the initial work in the Bay Area and Outer Coast, CoSMoS 2.2 adds river flows to help users project combined river and coastal flooding along the northern California coast from Bodega Head to Point Arena.
CoSMoS 2.1: San Francisco Bay
With primary support from the National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), CoSMoS is set-up within the San Francisco Bay as part of Our Coast Our Future (OCOF).
CoSMoS 2.0: North-central California (outer coast)
Our Coast Our Future (OCOF) is a collaborative, user-driven project providing science-based decision-support tools to help coastal planners and emergency responders understand, visualize, and anticipate local impacts from sea-level rise (SLR) and storms in the San Francisco Bay region.
Climate impacts to Arctic coasts, recent activities
New instruments installed to measure Arctic coastal erosion; community outreach event held
Impacts of sea-level rise on the tidal reach of California coastal rivers using the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS)
In coastal rivers, the interactions between tides and fluvial discharge affect local ecology, sedimentation, river dynamics, river mouth configuration, and the flooding potential in adjacent wetlands and low-lying areas. With sea-level rise, the tidal reach within coastal rivers can expand upstream, impacting river dynamics and increasing flood...
O'Neill, Andrea C.; Erikson, Li H.; Barnard, Patrick L. Modeling sediment bypassing around idealized rocky headlands
Alongshore sediment bypassing rocky headlands remains understudied despite the importance of characterizing littoral processes for erosion abatement, beach management, and climate change adaptation. To address this gap, a numerical model sediment transport study was developed to identify controlling factors and mechanisms for sediment headland...
Douglas A. George; John L. Largier; Greg B. Pasternack; Barnard, Patrick L.; Storlazzi, Curt D.; Erikson, Li H. Dynamic flood modeling essential to assess the coastal impacts of climate change
Coastal inundation due to sea level rise (SLR) is projected to displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide over the next century, creating significant economic, humanitarian, and national-security challenges. However, the majority of previous efforts to characterize potential coastal impacts of climate change have focused primarily on long-...
Barnard, Patrick L.; Erikson, Li H.; Foxgrover, Amy C.; Finzi Hart, Juliette A.; Limber, Patrick W.; O'Neill, Andrea C.; van Ormondt, Maarten; Vitousek, Sean; Wood, Nathan J.; Hayden, Maya K.; Jones, Jeanne M. Towards determining spatial methane distribution on Arctic permafrost bluffs with an unmanned aerial system
Arctic permafrost stores vast amounts of methane (CH4) in subsurface reservoirs. Thawing permafrost creates areas for this potent greenhouse gas to be released to the atmosphere. Identifying ‘hot spots’ of methane flux on a local scale has been limited by the spatial scales of traditional ground-based or satellite-based methane-sampling methods....
Oberle, Ferdinand K. J.; Gibbs, Ann E.; Richmond, Bruce M.; Erikson, Li H.; Waldrop, Mark P.; Swarzenski, Peter W. Storm surge propagation and flooding in small tidal rivers during events of mixed coastal and fluvial influence
The highly urbanized estuary of San Francisco Bay is an excellent example of a location susceptible to flooding from both coastal and fluvial influences. As part of developing a forecast model that integrates fluvial and oceanic drivers, a case study of the Napa River and its interactions with the San Francisco Bay was performed. For this...
Herdman, Liv; Erikson, Li H.; Barnard, Patrick L. Identification of storm events and contiguous coastal sections for deterministic modeling of extreme coastal flood events in response to climate change
Deterministic dynamical modeling of future climate conditions and associated hazards, such as flooding, can be computationally-expensive if century-long time-series of waves, sea level variations, and overland flow patterns are simulated. To alleviate some of the computational costs, local impacts of individual coastal storms can be explored by...
Erikson, Li H.; Espejo, Antonio; Barnard, Patrick L.; Katherine A. Serafin; Hegermiller, Christie; O'Neill, Andrea C.; Ruggerio, Peter; Limber, Patrick W.; Fernando Mendez Assessing and communicating the impacts of climate change on the Southern California coast
Over the course of this and the next century, the combination of rising sea levels, severe storms, and coastal erosion will threaten the sustainability of coastal communities, development, and ecosystems as we currently know them. To clearly identify coastal vulnerabilities and develop appropriate adaptation strategies for projected increased...
Erikson, Li H.; Barnard, Patrick L.; O'Neill, Andrea C.; Limber, Patrick; Vitousek, Sean; Finzi Hart, Juliette; Hayden, Maya; Jones, Jeanne M.; Wood, Nathan J.; Fitzgibbon, Michael; Foxgrover, Amy C.; Lovering, Jessica Projected 21st century coastal flooding in the Southern California Bight. Part 2: Tools for assessing climate change-driven coastal hazards and socio-economic impacts
This paper is the second of two that describes the Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) approach for quantifying physical hazards and socio-economic hazard exposure in coastal zones affected by sea-level rise and changing coastal storms. The modelling approach, presented in Part 1, downscales atmospheric global-scale projections to local scale...
Erikson, Li H.; Barnard, Patrick L.; O'Neill, Andrea C.; Wood, Nathan J.; Jones, Jeanne M.; Finzi Hart, Juliette; Vitousek, Sean; Limber, Patrick W.; Hayden, Maya; Fitzgibbon, Michael; Lovering, Jessica; Foxgrover, Amy C. A model ensemble for projecting multi‐decadal coastal cliff retreat during the 21st century
Sea cliff retreat rates are expected to accelerate with rising sea levels during the 21st century. Here we develop an approach for a multi‐model ensemble that efficiently projects time‐averaged sea cliff retreat over multi‐decadal time scales and large (>50 km) spatial scales. The ensemble consists of five simple 1‐D models adapted from the...
Limber, Patrick W.; Barnard, Patrick L.; Vitousek, Sean; Erikson, Li H. Projected 21st century coastal flooding in the Southern California Bight. Part 1: Development of the third generation CoSMoS model
Due to the effects of climate change over the course of the next century, the combination of rising sea levels, severe storms, and coastal change will threaten the sustainability of coastal communities, development, and ecosystems as we know them today. To clearly identify coastal vulnerabilities and develop appropriate adaptation strategies due...
O'Neill, Andrea C.; Erikson, Li H.; Barnard, Patrick L.; Limber, Patrick W.; Vitousek, Sean; Warrick, Jonathan; Foxgrover, Amy C.; Lovering, Jessica Estimating fluvial discharges coincident with 21st century coastal storms modeled with CoSMoS
On the open coast, flooding is largely driven by tides, storm surge, waves, and in areas near coastal inlets, the magnitude and co-occurrence of high fluvial discharges. Statistical methods are typically used to estimate the individual probability of coastal storm and fluvial discharge occurrences for use in sophisticated flood hazard models. A...
Erikson, Li H.; O'Neill, Andrea C.; Barnard, Patrick L. The influence of sea level rise on the regional interdependence of coastal infrastructure
Sea level rise (SLR) is placing both immediate and long‐term pressures on coastal communities to take protective actions. Projects in the United States, and in many locations throughout the world, generally involve local jurisdictions raising the elevation of shoreline protection elements, with limited or no analysis of the feedback between...
Wang, Ruo-Quian; Stacey, Mark T.; Herdman, Liv; Barnard, Patrick L.; Erikson, Li H.
New instruments installed to measure Arctic coastal erosion
In July 2018, three USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center researchers installed instruments and hosted a community outreach event.
ABC News speaks to USGS researchers about Arctic coastal change
Documentary features USGS researchers