Recently, 2020 PhD student Yicheng Tan who co-directed by Professor Wei Zhang, Xiangbo Feng from the University of Reading in the UK and Professor Hoitink from Wageningen University in the Netherlands published an academic paper entitled “Storm surge variability and prediction from ENSO and tropical cyclones” in the international authoritative academic journal ERL (Environmental Research Letters) (JCR Region 1, 6.94). The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China “Key Technologies for Compounded Disaster Assessment and Emergency Avoidance in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area”. This paper is another important academic progress published by Professor Wei Zhang’s research team in the field of flood control and disaster reduction in estuarine and coastal areas in the past three years. What’s more, it provides a basis for subsequent research on composite flood disasters in the case of land-sea interaction.

Storm surges are among the deadliest natural hazards, but understanding and prediction of year-to-year variability of storm surges is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that the interannual variability of observed storm surge levels can be explained and further predicted, through a process-based study in Hong Kong. We find that El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exerts a compound impact on storm surge levels through modulating tropical cyclones (TCs) and other forcing factors. The occurrence frequencies of local and remote TCs are responsible for the remaining variability in storm surge levels after removing the ENSO effect. Finally, we show that a statistical prediction model formed by ENSO and TC indices has good skill for prediction of extreme storm surge levels. The analysis approach can be applied to other coastal regions where tropical storms and the climate variability are main contributors to storm surges. Our study gives new insight into identifying ‘windows of opportunity’ for successful prediction of storm surges on long-range timescales.

文章下载地址：https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acb1c8

download the article: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acb1c8